


Where the Ghoul Boys & The Jackalopes Play

by drunkkenobi



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Accidental baby cryptid acquisition, Blow Jobs, Comedy, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed, dubious jackalope lore, jackalopes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-10 06:39:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17420969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drunkkenobi/pseuds/drunkkenobi
Summary: “I will do no such thing,” Shane said, slapping his scarf down on his own bed. “Ryan, you have brought diseased rabbits into the place where we’re supposed to sleep tonight. And now you’re cuddling them?!”“I’m trying to warm them up! And they’re not rabbits, they’re-,”“Stop, don’t say it.”“Jackalopes,” Ryan finished before looking down at them. “Aren’t you guys? With your little antlers?”“Yes, sir.”Or: the boys find some talking baby jackalopes and cute shenanigans ensue.





	Where the Ghoul Boys & The Jackalopes Play

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Bee for the beta! And to Bess for running this collection! And the discord for inspiring this to begin with. Y'all are the best.
> 
> I took most of my jackalope mythology from Wikipedia, but some of it is very much of my own creation. Apologies to all real jackalopes for the embellishing.
> 
> Also there’s an exchange in here that’s lifted from Who Framed Roger Rabbit because I’m a simple woman who likes rabbit-focused entertainment.
> 
> CW for one line mention of puke and a brief scene with blood.

“So, they only have three seats left on this flight,” Devon informed the group, chewing on her lip. “And they have plenty of seats available for Sunday flights but with the storm coming in...they can’t guarantee the airport will even be open tomorrow.”

“I’ll stay,” Ryan said automatically, regardless of how he really felt about staying in subzero temperatures in Wyoming. “It was my idea to do an episode here, I’ll take the bullet.

“Me too,” Shane agreed. “I’m more built for a brutal winter than all you California whippersnappers.”

“You guys sure?” TJ asked them, tightening his grip on his backpack’s straps. “I could take someone’s spot-,”

“Dude, you have a baby. Go home, we’ll be fine,” Ryan insisted. “Me and the big guy can handle a day or two more in Cheyenne.”

“Thanks, guys,” TJ said. “I guess we should get our new tickets, then?”

“Yeah,” Devon confirmed. “Let me know if you guys have any issues with the hotel or flights, okay? I can help over the phone.”

“Relax, we’ll be fine,” Shane assured her. “Now go on, before you’re stuck here with us.”

With that, Devon, TJ, and Mark waved goodbye to Ryan and Shane, making their way to the ticket counter at the Cheyenne airport. Heaving his duffel bag onto his shoulder, Ryan looked to Shane.

“So. How do you want to spend our extra night in Wyoming when it’s five degrees out?”

Shane thought for a moment.

“Wanna get super drunk?”

“I really, really do.”

* * *

 

The shoot had gone well enough. The Atlas Theater in downtown Cheyenne provided some good spirit box evidence, along with lots of Shane’s old-timey Hollywood accent that always went over well with the fans. It wasn’t until they got to the airport that everything went sideways, with their flight being overbooked the night before a big snowstorm was supposed to roll in. In retrospect, Ryan really should have waited until the spring to shoot an episode in Wyoming, but it was too late for that now.

It was also too late to be ordering rum and cokes, but Ryan was still doing it anyway. In his defense, he could get three for the price of what one would be in LA.

“Yo, you might wanna slow down there, slugger,” Shane told him, swirling his own cocktail, some fruity tropical thing. “What if we really do gotta get up early in the morning for our flight?”

Ryan waved him off. “Look outside, dude. There’s no way that tiny-ass little airport is gonna be open in the morning. And look who’s talkin’, you’ve had at least two more drinks than me and I’ve had...many drinks.”

“But I’m from Illinois and you’re from Cali, so it’s really like you’re two drinks ahead of me.”

“I really don’t think that’s a thing,” he said skeptically, fishing the cherry out of his glass.

“Trust me, it is. You should come back with me sometime, you’ll see. Midwesterners are the Olympians of drinking.”

“Mmhmm,” Ryan murmured as he played with the small pile of cherry stems in front of him. Struck by inspiration, he arranged them into a very long stick figure.

Ryan pointed to his masterpiece. “Hey, Shane, hey. It’s you!”

“The resemblance is uncanny,” Shane said. “Watch out everyone. That Ryan Bergara is a triple threat! Video producer, ghost hunter, and _artiste_!”

“You know, if you’re just gonna make fun of me, then you don’t deserve my art,” Ryan pouted, sweeping the stems back into an untidy pile.

“I wasn’t making fun of you! I liked that,” Shane said with a sigh. “See, this is why I prefer filming True Crime. You’re less likely to take everything I say so damn personal.”

Ryan folded his arms, narrowing his eyes at Shane. “Well, excuuuuuse me for assuming you were giving me shit since that’s literally what you do _all the time_.”

“Thank you for proving my point.” Shane rolled his eyes. “I may do that on the show, but look around, buddy, no cameras here! God forbid I try to pay you a compliment.”

Ryan frowned into his glass. Shane probably did have a point, but that just annoyed him more.

“Whatever, dude. It’s not like the cameras turn off and suddenly you believe in ghosts and demons and Bigfoots. Bigfeet. Bigfeets.” He shook his head, trying to get back on track. “You always think I’m full of shit when I’m _not_.”

“Well, no, I don’t believe, but that’s sort of the point,” Shane said with little patience. “And besides, way to choose the one thing I actually _don’t_ think you’re crazy about. Bigfoot at least makes some sort of sense. He’s meat!”

“What about other cryptids, though? Like Mothman or chupacabras or jackalopes?” Ryan said, pointing towards a taxidermied jackalope above the bar. “They’re meat but I bet you don’t think _those_ are real.”

“Sure don’t.”

“Ha! See, there you are, belittling me, as always. Called it!”

“Ryan.” Shane stared down his long nose at him. “Jackalopes are not like Bigfoot. They’re a hoax, you have to know that, right?”

Ryan pulled out his phone to Google “jackalope” to prove him wrong. “See? So real, Shane. So fucking real.”

Shane grabbed the phone out of his hand. “You just opened a text to your mom and typed  ‘Jacksonville’.”

“My mom’s real,” Ryan muttered.

Rubbing his fingers over his forehead, Shane sighed. “Yes, yes she is. A lovely, real woman.”

“Hey, don’t hit on my mom!”

“What?! I just said she was lovely, which she is. I am officially cutting you off.”

“I’ll cut you off,” Ryan glared.

Shane ignored him, standing to go settle their tabs, but his supposedly strong Midwestern genes betrayed him. He immediately had to sit back down.

“Whoa. That was harder than I expected,” Shane said, squeezing his eyes shut for a few seconds. “Okay, trying that again.”

This time, Shane was able to stay standing as he stumbled to the bartender while Ryan laughed exaggeratedly at every one of his fumbles. He knew Shane was just as drunk as him, he fucking knew it.

“Alright, I ordered a Lyft, too. Bundle up, buckaroo,” Shane told him after he was done at the bar.

“But I’m so hot already,” Ryan complained, showing off his rolled-up sleeves.

“Fine, then freeze to death. See if I care.”

Ryan considered doing just that so he could haunt Shane and prove him wrong once and for all, but he really did not want to be a ghost in Cheyenne. It was a nice little city but not optimal for a SoCal boy to spend his eternity.

The ride back to their hotel on the outskirts of the city was quiet. Ryan’s head was still swimming with rum and a general annoyance with Shane. He didn’t mind arguing with Shane, it was literally his job, but sometimes Shane’s stubbornness was too much. Ryan wondered what it was going to take for Shane to acknowledge that the paranormal was real. Even if it wasn’t ghosts or demons, just _something_ , anything that was outside of the norm. Probably have to be Bigfoot himself, inviting Shane into his cave home to crack open a cold one. And even then, Shane would still probably argue that it had all been a dream.

As soon as their Lyft driver pulled into the parking lot, her tires slid across a icy patch at the entrance.

“Hey, you guys mind getting out here? I don’t want to get stuck in the parking lot where they don’t salt. I’ll give you a good rating!”

Shane said it was fine, and so they stepped out into the bitter cold of the Wyoming night. The snow had been falling steadily for the past couple of hours, but there was a harshness to it now that took Ryan by surprise.

“Jesus fuck, this is so fucking cold,” he grumbled, hugging his arms to his chest.

“You’ll be fine,” Shane scoffed, but he was shivering as well.

With the parking lot a skating rink, it was slow going back to the hotel, much to Ryan’s chagrin. Why the hell did people live where it got this cold? The wind alone was like a thousand tiny knives stabbing his face. He did have to admit it was one hell of an effective way to sober up, though.

“ _Help!_ ”

Ryan stopped. That had been the wind, right?

“ _Heeeelp!_ ”

“Ryan, what are you doing? Did you freeze solid ten feet from the entrance?”

“Shhhh! Shut up!” Ryan hissed. “I heard something.”

“Yeah, the wind-,”

“SHUT UP!”

“ _Help us!”_

Ryan looked to Shane, brow furrowed. “Does that sound like the wind? Where’s it coming from?”

“It did, actually.”

Ryan flipped him off before taking a couple steps towards the side of the hotel where he thought he heard the high-pitched voice. Was it a little kid who was hurt or something?

“Where are you going?!”

“To help! Duh!”

“Ryan!”

“You don’t have to come.”

For a few seconds, Ryan thought he wasn’t going to, but then he heard a frustrated sigh and Shane’s heavy steps on the snow and ice coming up behind him.

As they made their way to the hotel’s side parking lot, Ryan didn’t see anyone, let alone a kid in distress. There weren’t even any cars, just a row of dead bushes lining the side of the building.

“ _Help! Over here!”_

Ryan followed the voice to the line of bushes, but there wasn’t anyone there. A terrifying thought popped into his brain; was this a ghost? Or, oh fuck, a _demon_? Were he and Shane about to get murked?

“Hello? I can hear you, but I don’t see you,” Ryan said, teeth chattering from the cold and maybe a little bit from fear.

“This is ridiculous, even for you. Come on, let’s go,” Shane said, tugging on Ryan’s shoulder.

“ _Down here!_ ”

Ryan looked down to see a small brown rabbit standing right by his feet. But the rabbit didn’t look like any rabbit he’d ever seen, with three-inch, multi-pronged horns jutting out of its forehead.

“Um.”

“Aw look, a bunny. You cold, little fella?” Shane asked, peering down over Ryan’s shoulder and not aware that this bunny had just fucking talked.

“ _Please help!_ ”

“Please tell me you heard that,” Ryan swallowed.

“Uh, I heard _something_ ,” Shane said. “Probably someone’s TV.”

Ryan knelt down and the rabbit didn’t move. He didn’t know a lot about rabbits but he was pretty sure they were much more easily startled, and also that they didn’t fucking talk.

“Is this real? Are you real?” he whispered to the rabbit.

“For Christ’s sake, _Ryan,”_ Shane started but the rabbit interrupted him.

“ _Yes, sir. We need help_.”

“We?”

The rabbit nodded towards one of the dead bushes with its horns, where there were two more similar looking animals. One was standing over another much smaller rabbit, and nudging it with its nose.

“ _Too cold_ ,” the rabbit next to Ryan’s feet said.

Ryan’s heart was beating a loud thrum against his chest. He didn’t have the slightest clue how and why this rabbit was talking, but he did know that this extra small bunny was not in good shape. Scooting along the icy pavement, he held out a hand towards the rabbits under the bare bush.

“C’mon. I can help.”

“Ryan,” Shane said from above him, his voice shaking. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“They need help. I’m helping,” he explained, letting the bigger of the two sniff his gloved hand.

“They are wild animals! That have some weird mutant horn disease! Leave them be!”

Ryan shot him a nasty glare. “And what? Let them freeze? No way, dude. Besides, they asked for our help.”

Shane looked physically pained. “No, they didn’t. That’s just someone’s TV, like I said.”

Before Ryan could argue more, the rabbit that was sniffing his hand nudged his fingers with its horns.

“ _He doesn’t have long. Hurry up!”_

This one’s voice was much squeakier than the one that had drawn Ryan’s attention. Ryan thought it was weird that they’d have different voices before realizing how ridiculous that sounded. People didn’t all sound the same, why would talking rabbits be different?

Ignoring Shane’s protests, Ryan scooped the smaller, immobile bunny up off the ground. It was so tiny it fit in Ryan’s palm, and while it had horns like the other two, one of the horns was very short, maybe only half an inch long, if that.

Ryan looked to the two other rabbits that were now sitting in front of him. “Um, I don’t know how I’m gonna sneak all of you in.”

“WHAT?! RYAN. NO.”

Like Ryan, the rabbits ignored Shane. “ _We can hide in your coat, sir_.”

Carefully holding the smallest one in his left hand, Ryan picked up the first rabbit and gently tucked it into his right coat pocket before doing the same with the other one in his left. While they fit snugly, their horns were poking out of the top a little but Ryan hoped they wouldn’t be noticeable.

“Ryan, please, buddy. Do not bring sick rabbits into our hotel room, I’m begging you,” Shane pleaded as Ryan gingerly stood back up. He cradled the littlest one to his chest with both hands as he started walking back towards the entrance. Its longer horn tickled his chin and Ryan suddenly realized that these weren’t horns - they were antlers.

“They’re not sick, they’re just cold. And I don’t think they’re rabbits. At least, not technically.”

“Pray tell! What are they, then?”

“Jackalopes. Duh.”

“ _RYAN_. We just talked about this!” Shane shrieked. “They were a hoax! All those taxidermies are just rabbits with antlers glued on!”

Ryan really wanted to stay and argue with him, but it was too fucking cold out. The tiny jackalope in his hands wouldn’t make it if he didn’t get inside soon. Thankfully, it was late enough that there was only one front desk attendant and she didn’t pay Ryan, Shane, or the antlers poking out of Ryan’s pockets any attention once they were in the hotel.

Shane had to open their hotel room door, despite how unhappy he looked about it. He’d been quiet once they got into the hotel proper, but Ryan could smell the disapproval wafting off of him. Whatever, these little guys needed Ryan’s help.

Once inside, Ryan immediately set the smallest jackalope on his bed before pulling the other two out of his pockets to join their sibling. Then he grabbed a hoodie out of his duffel bag to wrap around them, to hopefully warm them up.

“Does that help?” he asked them.

The two bigger ones nestled around the small one but the small one’s eyes were still closed. Shit. Quickly, Ryan shrugged out of his wet and cold outerwear before joining the jackalopes on his bed. Curling his body around the makeshift hoodie nest, he tried to expend some of his body heat to them. For some reason, this was the straw that broke Shane’s back.

“You’ve fucking lost your fucking mind.”

“Shut up and raise the thermostat.”

“I will do no such thing,” Shane said, slapping his scarf down on his own bed. “Ryan, you have brought diseased rabbits into the place where we’re supposed to sleep tonight. And now you’re _cuddling_ them?!”

“I’m trying to warm them up! And they’re not rabbits, they’re-,”

“Stop, don’t say it.”

“Jackalopes,” Ryan finished before looking down at them. “Aren’t you guys? With your little antlers?”

“ _Yes, sir_.”

Ryan grinned triumphantly at Shane. “See? Straight from the jackalope’s mouth.”

Shane stared back at him, his eyes narrowed with fury. “I know the ventriloquistic arts, Ryan, _stop that_.”

“Classic Shane, never accepting what’s right in front of his face.” Ryan shook his head. “Don’t know what I expected.”

After angrily shoving his gloves off, Shane typed something into his phone.

“‘In the 1930s’,” he read off his screen. “‘Douglas Herrick and his brother, hunters with taxidermy skills, popularized the American jackalope by grafting deer antlers onto a jackrabbit carcass and selling the combination to a local hotel in Douglas, Wyoming’. See? Hoax.”

Shane shoved his phone in Ryan’s face. “And look, it even says that they were likely inspired by rabbits with this ‘shope papilloma virus’ where tumors grow out of rabbits and resemble horns. I fucking told you.”

Ryan skimmed the Wikipedia page, swiping up to read more. Shane wanted to play that game? Alright. “‘The jackalope can imitate the human voice.’ Wow, who would have guessed?”

Shane brought the phone back to his face to confirm what Ryan had said. “Yeah, _‘according to legend_ ,’ you loon. Those brothers made them up to make a quick buck! It’s not that hard of a concept!”

“Both things can be true,” Ryan said as he carefully slid off the bed and made his way to the minibar. “The taxidermy guys could have faked their jackalopes while real ones existed. That’s obviously what happened here.”

“Obviously,” Shane snorted. “What the fuck are you doing now?”

“The Wikipage also said they drink whiskey, so,” he pulled out a small, overly-priced bottle of Jack Daniels. “Maybe this will help the little one get warm.”

Blocking his path, Shane grabbed Ryan’s shoulders. “Look. I know we joke around about this shit a lot because it’s our job, but you are seriously worrying me right now. Jackalopes are not real. These are rabbits. They do not talk. They do not drink whiskey. They. Are. Rabbits.”

“And here I thought you were only a condescending asshole when there were cameras around,” Ryan said as he rolled his eyes and pushed Shane out of the way.

Back on the bed, Ryan cracked open the whiskey and poured some into the lid before holding it in front of the tiniest jackalope.

“C’mon little guy. Drink up.”

For the first time, the littlest one’s nose wiggled. After some prodding from its siblings, it opened its mouth to taste the whiskey. A few sips later, its eyes finally opened.

“Holy shit! That’s it, little dude!”

“ _Sir! You did it!_ ” one of the other jackalopes said, sitting up on its hind legs.

“ _Thank you_ ,” the little one croaked in between sips. Its voice was much weaker than the other two.

Beaming, Ryan poured more liquor into the lid before giving little dude some pets. It was still cold, but it certainly was warmer than it had been just a few minutes ago.

“There you go, drink the Jack's. Hey, can I call you Jack? Or do you guys have names?”

The jackalopes shared looks before one of them spoke. “ _This is my sister and my brother and I am their sister. That is what we are known as._ ”

“I see. Well, we have names. Like, mine is Ryan and this gigantic human walking stick is Shane.”

When Ryan glanced back at him, Shane’s face had gone stark white.

“Are you okay?”

“It-it t-talked,” Shane stammered, pointing a trembling finger at the one that last spoke.

“Yeah, no shit.”

“H-how?”

“I dunno,” Ryan shrugged before turning back to the jackalopes. “So, do you mind if I give you names? Just to make it easier?”

They nodded in unison, their antlers lightly clacking against each other.

“Okay, little guy is Jack. And you,” he said as patted the one that had called for help’s nose. “Are Danielle.” Finally, he petted the one with the squeaky voice. “And you are, hmmm. Fireball. How does that sound?”

“ _Okay!_ ” Danielle said.

“I-I hafta...be right back,” Shane said abruptly before sprinting into the bathroom. Seconds later, Ryan heard him retch.

“Will you guys be okay if I go check on him?”

“ _Yes. Leave the whiskey,_ ” Jack said.

Ryan filled the lid up again before heading into the bathroom. Shane had just flushed the toilet before sagging against the bathroom wall, his legs seemingly taking up the entire floor.

“How’re you doing, big guy?”

“I-I think we need to go to the hospital,” he said, wiping at his mouth with some toilet paper.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“We got drugged at the bar. Or maybe we have alcohol poisoning. That can make you delusional, right?”

Ryan sighed, stepping over Shane’s legs to sit down next to him on the bathroom floor. Of course he was still denying it. Of course. “Nobody drugged us, dude.”

“You don’t know that!” Shane protested. “It’s the only explanation for how we’re both hallucinating like this.”

“Look, I know it’s crazy, but we’re not hallucinating,” Ryan told him. “How would we even be hallucinating the same thing?”

“I don’t know, but it’s the only thing that makes sense,” Shane said, glancing at Ryan. “You know that, right? That there aren’t three little _talking_ jackalopes out on your hotel bed?”

“But there are three little talking jackalopes on my bed,” Ryan pointed out, trying to hide his annoyance. “Why is that so hard for you to accept?”

Shane grabbed Ryan’s face so they were unable to avoid eye contact. He looked manic, like taunting Goatman levels of manic. “Because they’re. Not. Real!”

Ryan curled his hands around Shane’s wrists to pull them down and away from his face. Shane’s pulse was racing so Ryan didn’t let go. “Yes, they are, Shane.”

“No, they’re not,” he countered. “Those are just rabbits and you’ve lost your goddamn mind.”

“Well, they are,” Ryan said, dropping Shane’s wrists so he could stand up. “And if it’s that hard for you to admit that I’m right, then you can go fuck yourself.”

Shane stared up at him, speechless. After committing that extremely rare sight to memory, Ryan turned to leave. Despite his desire to continue yelling at Shane to accept what was right in front of his giant face, he knew it was more important to check back up on the jackalopes.

Back out on the hotel bed, said jackalopes were playing with the empty Jack Daniels lid. One would throw it up into the air with their mouth and the others would hop after it to do the same.

In an instant, all of Ryan’s irritation with Shane was gone. How could anyone be irritated after seeing that?

He sat on the edge of the bed where Jack was currently wrestling with the lid. “Feeling better?”

Jack stopped playing to nod at Ryan. “ _Yes, sir! Thank you!”_

Ryan chuckled. “You don’t have to keep calling me ‘sir’.”

“ _But that’s what the people inside always say to the other people. Is that not right?”_ Jack asked.

“ _Sometimes they say ‘ma’am,’”_ Fireball squeaked from the other side of the bed.

“ _Sorry, ma’am!”_ Danielle said, hopping up next to Ryan.

“No, wait, don’t call me that, either,” he laughed. “Just call me Ryan, okay?”

“ _Ry-an_ ,” Danielle said, the word obviously alien to her the way she clipped the syllables.

He scratched the top of her head between her antlers. “Close enough.”

Ryan continued to play and chat with them, eventually lying down on the bed while the jackalopes hopped around him. They had learned how to talk from their mother, who had lived around the hotel her entire life and picked up words from the staff and guests. Normally, she could keep them warm during bad weather, but they hadn’t seen her since she’d left to gather berries earlier in the day.

Ryan was in the middle of reassuring them that she was fine when Shane decided to finally emerge from the bathroom.

“I’m sure she’s okay, probably just got stuck in the blizzard somewhere,” he said as Shane stepped back into view. He was super pale, even for him, and his hair was sticking up every which way from constantly messing with it.

“Who got stuck in the blizzard?” Shane asked, his voice hoarse.

“Their mom.”

“Oh. Well, she might have gotten hit by a-,”

“SHANE! Shhh!” Ryan cut him off as he tried to cover at least one of the jackalopes’ ears.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Shane sighed. “Ryan, they can’t-,”

This time, Fireball interrupted him. “ _Hit by a what, sir?”_

Shane froze, staring at the jackalope sitting on Ryan’s chest. When he didn’t immediately respond, Danielle whispered to her sister.

“ _Maybe that one is a ‘ma’am’?”_

With a nod, Fireball asked Shane again. “ _Hit by a what, ma’am?”_

His eyes went wide as he looked from Fireball to Ryan to the other jackalopes back to Ryan.

“Did...did that one just call me  _‘ma’am’_?”

Ryan couldn’t have suppressed the giant grin on his face for all of the Air Jordans in the world. “She sure did.”

“I, uh,” Shane swallowed, closing his eyes like he was preparing himself for something especially painful. “I was saying she maybe got hit by the storm and had to hide somewhere. That’s all.”

There it was.

Acceptance.

The greatest moments in Ryan’s life so far largely consisted of the usual suspects: graduation, family gatherings, the Lakers championship wins, Unsolved getting picked up, and so on.

But watching Shane accept that he was having a conversation with a very real and very adorable baby jackalope eclipsed them all.

“ _Oh yes. That is what Ry-an said as well,”_ Fireball nodded.

“They, uh, they know your name?” Shane asked Ryan, although his eyes were still trained on Fireball.

Ryan could barely contain his glee. It was really fucking fun to be the smug one, no wonder Shane liked it so much. “Yup. I told them yours, too, but it might be easier just to introduce yourself.”

The wrinkles on Shane’s forehead deepened. “Introduce myself. Sure.”

He stepped up to Ryan’s bed and knelt down so that he was, sort of, eye-level with Fireball. As he did, the other two hopped up on Ryan’s chest to join her, like they were meeting a celebrity.

“Uh, I’m Shane. Nice to...meet you.”

He held out his right hand, palm up, to let the jackalopes smell him. As they did, Shane giggled from their whiskers tickling his fingers but he didn’t draw his hand away.

“ _Shhhhaane. Shane,_ ” Fireball said, testing out his name.

“Yup, that’s me,” he nodded before adding under his breath. “This is so fucking weird.”

“Hey! Don’t say the f-word,” Ryan admonished him.

“Oh my God-,” Shane started but he stopped as Jack hopped into Shane’s outstretched palm, where he fit perfectly.

“ _Hello Shane. Thank you for helping us,”_ Jack said, his voice still a little weak.

Shane brought Jack up to eye level, cupping his other hand around him to keep him steady. When he spoke again, his voice was soft.

“You’re welcome, little fella.”

Jack licked Shane’s palm right where it met his wrist. Shane let out a small “Oh!” as his face split into a wide smile.

“Awww,” Ryan said with a grin.

“Shut up, we’re having a moment.”

Ryan grabbed his phone to document said moment. He only got a few seconds of Shane and Jack before Danielle started gnawing on the corner of Ryan’s phone case and he had to very gently scold her.

Ryan and Shane played with the jackalopes for awhile longer before the night caught up with them. Ryan set up his duffel bag and clothes as steps to the bed so the jackalopes could get down if they wanted. Meanwhile, Shane set up a little water bowl (using the hotel room’s coffee cups) and a makeshift jackalope toilet (turning the small bathroom wastebasket on its side) in the bathroom. Ryan knew there was going to be more to deal with in the morning, but for now, it was a pretty good set-up.

After changing into his pajamas, Ryan came back out into the hotel room to find the jackalopes already fast asleep in a pile on his pillow. He had no idea how they kept their antlers from getting tangled, the way they were so closely snuggled.

“Hey, scooch,” Ryan said to Shane, who was already in his bed.

“What? Why?”

“They’re already asleep. I don’t want to wake them,” he pointed over to his bed.

“Good Lord,” Shane rolled his eyes but he did scoot over. “It’s a good thing Micki and Dori live with your parents or they’d be even more spoiled, wouldn’t they?”

Ryan slipped under the covers. “Please, like you don’t buy Obi that super expensive refrigerated cat food.”

“Nutrition is a very important part of petcare.”

“That’s true.” He looked over to the sleeping trio. “What are we going to feed them?”

“I guess we can ask them. But more importantly, Ryan, what are we going to _do_ with them?”

“I have no idea.”

* * *

Something was wrong.

Wait, not wrong. Just...amiss. Different. Unusual.

Ryan cracked one eye open. It was still dark, with the only light coming from the hotel’s digital clock. But more interesting was the heavy and warm presence pressed up against Ryan’s back and slung across his chest. He shifted, wondering if he’d gotten twisted up in the comforter, but the weight around him moved too. As he tried to move again, Ryan realized something was also sharing his pillow, as the tips of his hair were pinned down.

Blindly, he reached up to feel around his head, hissing when something sharp poked against his fingertips. What the fuck? He reached up again, but kept his fingers closer to his head to avoid whatever had stabbed him. This time he felt soft fur that trembled slightly as his ran his fingers across it.

Oh yeah. The jackalopes, duh. Ryan had almost forgotten.

That still didn’t explain what was happening in the rest of the bed.

When Ryan brought his hand back down from his head, he tried to lift the weight off his side, but once again, it moved, long fingers curling up against Ryan’s chest.

Finally, the wires connected in Ryan’s mind.

“Shane,” he whispered, tapping on Shane’s wrist.

No response.

He tried again, keeping his voice low as to not wake the jackalopes but Shane still didn’t stir. It was no wonder Shane never heard any ghosts when they did overnight investigations, he slept like the dead themselves.

Ryan was about to pinch the back of Shane’s hand to get him to wake up but he stopped. Was it really worth waking him up in the very early morning just to get him to scoot over a few inches? Besides, it was still snowing out and the hotel room’s temperature had definitely dropped since they’d gone to bed. A little extra body heat never hurt anyone, right?

While he contemplated his cuddling conundrum, Ryan felt one of the jackalopes hop off his pillow and onto Shane’s. He couldn’t see what the jackalope was doing but he pretty quickly figured out that it involved Shane’s gigantic head.

“Mmph. Ow,” Shane murmured, finally waking up. The arm that was wrapped around Ryan stiffened before he pulled it away. Ryan shivered from the loss of contact and instantly felt like an idiot for it.

“There, little gal. That’s better,” Shane whispered before sliding his arm back under the covers, leaving it awkwardly pressed up against Ryan’s back.

Ryan almost left it there. It would’ve been so easy, too. But Ryan never did what was easy.

Reaching behind him, Ryan grabbed onto Shane’s arm. Before he could bring it back around his chest, Shane’s breath hitched and his entire body went taut, like a stretched rubber band.

“Ryan…?”

“I’m cold,” he said, not untruthfully.

“Oh.”

Shane’s arm relaxed enough for Ryan to pull it back around him. The weight was as warm and comforting as before, like a cozy log cabin fire. But Shane didn’t stop there. He slid his long legs in between Ryan’s, gasping when their feet touched.

“Shit! Why are your feet so cold?” Shane asked in a harsh whisper.

“Because it’s freezing in here.”

“Such a delicate California flower.”

Right as Ryan was about to tell him to shut up, one of the jackalopes on his pillow decided that Ryan’s head was a more appropriate place to sleep. Its sharp nails briefly dug into Ryan’s scalp as it climbed on before relaxing into what Ryan could only guess was a little loaf.

“Oh my God,” Shane breathed. “That’s so cute.”

“It kind of hurts. Which one is it?”

“Jack. Do you want me to move him?”

“Bring him under the covers. Must be cold again,” Ryan said, tapping on the mattress next to where Shane’s hand was resting.

“Aw, he takes after you.”

Ryan’s stomach tightened at that but he didn’t know why. “Just get him before my scalp starts bleeding.”

Shane carefully plucked Jack off of Ryan’s head and set him down against Ryan’s chest under the blankets. Jack awoke, making soft snuffling noises.

“ _Cold_ ,” he whimpered.

“I know, little bud,” Ryan said quietly as he petted him. “We’ll warm you up.”

Shane’s hand bumped into Ryan’s as he also stroked Jack’s side. “Yeah, we got you.”

Jack nuzzled into Ryan’s chest, his antler scratching his t-shirt. (Thankfully it was his short antler that had a blunt edge so it didn’t hurt.) Ryan cupped his hand around Jack and rubbed his thumb up and down his back. He was so much smaller than his sisters, Ryan figured that must be why he was more susceptible to the cold. Even in the animal world, things were tough for the little guys.

“Is he getting warm?” Shane asked.

“I think so? Hard to tell.”

Shane laid his hand on Jack’s back (and Ryan’s thumb) and scratched him behind his ears. “Maybe this will help.”

It always took Ryan ages to fall asleep but within minutes, he could feel himself drifting away. Maybe it was jackalope magic.

* * *

When Ryan woke up for the second time, he _knew_ something was actually wrong. There was no way anyone could possibly be this cold and be indoors. A window must have broken or something.

Keeping his eyes shut, Ryan curled up into the tightest fetal position he could, hugging the covers close.

“Hey look kids. Someone's finally stirring.”

The bed dipped with a small amount of weight. “ _Ryan! We have food!”_

That got his attention. He opened his eyes to see Danielle perched on the edge of the bed right in front of his face.

“Food? From where?” he asked groggily.

“ _Shane!_ ”

Ryan glanced across at the other bed to see Shane lounging against the headboard with a smorgasbord of fruits laid out next to him. While Jack munched on a pile of blueberries, Fireball was on Shane's shoulder trying to get a bite of his muffin.

“Holy shiiiiiiinikes dude,” Ryan said, course correcting as to not swear in front of the jackalopes. “Where'd you find all that?”

“Breakfast buffet. Which you would know if you ever actually ate breakfast.”

“I eat breakfast!”

“A Venti iced coffee and a power bar don’t count,” Shane said as he pinched off a piece of his muffin for Fireball. “They’ve got bacon and eggs and stuff down there, too, but it wasn’t as easy to stuff into my pockets.”

"Fruit’s good,” Ryan said with a yawn. “When’s our flight again?”

Shane snorted. “Look outside. We aren’t going anywhere.”

As much as Ryan did not want to leave his cocoon of blankets, his curiosity got the better of him. He made his way to the window and pulled back the curtains to reveal more snow than Ryan had ever seen in his entire life. It blanketed the parking lot, the roads, the fields surrounding the hotel, everything.

“Whoa.”

“Yeah. Airport is closed, probably won’t reopen until tomorrow. The hotel’s cool with us staying another night, though, and at a discounted rate since the heating’s borked.”

That answered Ryan’s next question. “So that’s why it’s so cold in here.”

“It keeps going in and out. The front desk people said they had maintenance people coming but the roads are pretty nasty, might take awhile,” Shane explained.

“Awesome,” Ryan sighed as he dug out a sweater and a pair of socks. “Never thought I’d freeze to death _inside_ a hotel before.”

“You are such a baby. It’s like 60 in here, not exactly end-of-The-Shining conditions.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Dude, you’re sitting there in at least three layers of shirts. Don’t act like you’re some abominable snowman immune to cold.”

Shane made a movement to throw his hands up in the air but stopped when he remembered Fireball was still on his shoulder and cupped his hand around her instead. “I never said that! I just said you were being a baby. Which you are.”

“I am not!” Ryan scowled, crossing his arms.

“Says the guy who just announced he would freeze to death inside a hotel room.”

“Jesus Christ, it was just an exaggeration!”

“Again, says the guy who once told me that there was an underwater Area 51 with no sense of irony.”

Ryan was about to retort, reminding Shane that he didn’t believe every theory he presented him, when Jack spoke up from his pile of blueberries, his nose wiggling anxiously.

“ _Why are you fighting_?”

Ryan’s heart plummeted into his stomach at the sound of his stressed out voice. “We’re not fighting, little dude. Not really.”

“ _You were yelling_ ,” Danielle pointed out from the other bed where she appeared to be ready to bolt at any second.

“ _Loudly,_ ” Fireball added.

Ryan and Shane shared a look, with Shane looking as ashamed as Ryan felt.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Shane told them. “Ryan and I just get a little...excited sometimes.”

Ryan crossed back to the other bed to sit with Danielle. “We’ll tone it down, okay?”

She didn’t look convinced to Ryan’s eyes, but Ryan didn’t know all that much about rabbits (let alone jackalopes) so he wasn’t completely sure. He should probably give that a Google search if he and Shane were going to be taking care of them until their mom came back.

After grabbing a handful of fruit for himself, Ryan laid back on the bed and pulled the covers up over him. Danielle promptly hopped onto his lap, her nose wriggling wildly at the berries clutched in his hand.

“Hey!” he giggled. “Your whiskers tickle.”

“ _Berries,_ ” she said, chasing his hand as his lifted it up and away from her.

“You can have _one_ ,” he said, holding out a raspberry between his forefinger and thumb.

She stood up on her back legs as Ryan fed her the berry. Holy shit, how could anything be that cute? It seemed impossible.

“Wish I could've gotten a picture of that,” he said as he watched Danielle munch on the berry and get it all over her cheeks.

“I got it,” Shane said. He was pointing his phone at them. “The first rule of being a cat dad is to always have your phone ready to go to capture those precious moments.”

“Oh awesome, can I see?”

Shane nodded and messaged him a video and a couple of photos. It was even cuter on here, the way her ears stood up around her antlers.

“Awwww. I really wish I could post this, it's so fu-uh. I mean, freaking cute.”

“You're not going to?” Shane asked, eyeing him quizzically. “Really?”

“Well, yeah. These guys are obviously super endangered. If I post about them, people might come looking for them and, uh, H-U-N-T them,” he said, spelling out “hunt” as to not upset the jackalopes in case they knew that word.

“But you're right!” Shane said, clearly flabbergasted. “For the first time-,”

“Oh haha.”

“Let me finish! For the first time about anything remotely supernatural, you have concrete, talking, adorable proof! Why aren't you going to publicly give me crap for the rest of time?”

“That's not what this is about,” he said with a shrug. “They needed help, so we're helping. That's it.”

“Wow. I never would've taken you for a man of the high road, Ryan Bergara. I'd be rubbing it in my face a dozen times a day if I was you.”

“Oh, I'm still gonna do that. Just not publicly,” Ryan said with a smirk. “Every day you will get texts with pictures of these guys and me telling you I was right and you were wrong and to suck it. I can promise you that.”

“Oh no, being sent pictures of cute, tiny animals, everyone’s worst nightmare!” Shane teased. “Perish the thought!”

“Maybe I’ll throw in some of just me, too, that way you’ll never be sure if you’re getting the good pics or not.”

“Still not seeing a down- _ow!_ ”

Fireball had abruptly hopped onto Shane’s head and not quite stuck the landing. Her front claws were digging into the top of Shane’s scalp while her back legs scrabbled at the side of his head and his ear. Shane quickly got his hands around her to try and get her down but she must have sunk her claws in deeper from the way Shane yelped.

“Ow ow ow ow,” he cringed. “Whatcha doin’ up there, Fireball?”

“ _Soft_ ,” was the only explanation she offered.

“Okay, sure, but you gotta let go of me. Please?” Shane asked through a wince.

Fireball did no such thing, settling down into a loaf on Shane’s head. Ryan couldn’t hold in his laughs any longer as he took pictures.

“This is the greatest thing to ever happen to me,” Ryan said, standing up to get better angles.

“I’m so happy for you,” Shane grumbled. “Why are they so obsessed with sitting on our heads?”

“They like the soft hair, I guess. And yours, in particular, looks very nest-like.”

“That’s one way to find out I need a haircut,” he said, rubbing his fingers over his scalp where Fireball had climbed up. When he pulled them away, there were a couple drops of bright red blood on his fingertips.

“Okay, this is no longer cute. You gotta get down, little girl,” Shane said, blindly reaching up for her again.

“ _No_.”

She must have sunk her nails in again, judging by Shane’s gasp. Reluctantly, Ryan stopped documenting to intervene.

Leaning over so he could get face-to-face with her, Ryan put on his best impression of a disappointed dad.

“Fireball. You have to let go of Shane’s head, okay?”

“ _No._ ”

“Yes. You’re hurting him. You don’t want to hurt him, do you?”

She lifted her head. “ _No.”_

“Then you have to get down, okay? I’ll find you somewhere else nice and soft to lay, promise.”

Ryan held out his hands in front of her, urging her to hop into them. After a few stubborn moments and some more coaxing from Ryan, she finally did.

“Good girl! Now, tell Shane you’re sorry,” Ryan said, holding her in front of Shane’s face.

Shane waved it off. “Hey, no, it’s fine. I’ll live.”

“Dude, you’re bleeding. She needs to know that,” Ryan pointed out. “Go on, Fireball. I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”

“ _Sorry_ ,” she mumbled with all the air of an annoyed teen. Close enough.

“Apology accepted,” Shane said, giving her a boop on the nose.

Ryan went hunting for the softest piece of clothing in his luggage, while Shane made his way to the bathroom, his hand pressed to the side of his head where she’d scratched him. After determining that his red sweater was the best, he bunched it into a little nest-like bundle and set Fireball on top of it.

“See? Soft like Shane’s hair, right?”

“ _No_ ,” she said, curling up regardless.

Jack and Danielle soon joined her, all apparently needing a post-breakfast nap. As Ryan was taking some pictures, Shane emerged from the bathroom with a damp washcloth pressed to his his head.

"I wonder how their antlers don’t get caught together,” Shane remarked, peering over Ryan’s shoulder down at them.

“I dunno. They really do get right on top of each other, huh?” Ryan said as he turned around. “How’s your head?”

“I've had no complaints,” Shane said, unable to hide a grin at his own joke.

“Shane!” Ryan whisper-yelled. “Not in front of the jackalopes!”

“Ryan, if a bunch of baby jackalopes can understand the wordplay of a blowjob joke than we have bigger problems on our hands,” Shane said. “And it’s fine, seriously. Just some light scratches.”

He pulled away the washcloth to show off a small but bright red bloody spot. With a frown, Ryan stood on the balls of his feet to get a better look at the scratches. Just a couple had broken the skin, but one of them ran down Shane’s scalp onto the back of his ear.

“Give me that,” Ryan said, holding out his hand for the washcloth.

“It’s fine, man. Probably looks worse than it is.”

Ryan snatched the washcloth from him. “You can’t see the side of your own head, you idiot.”

“I could in the mirror! Sort of,” Shane countered.

Ignoring that, Ryan gently pressed the washcloth against Shane’s head before tucking it behind his ear and holding it firmer.

“Here. Hold it like this.”

As Shane’s fingers fumbled over Ryan’s to grab onto the washcloth, Ryan was jolted by the sense memory of those same fingers on top of Ryan’s thumb from last night. He’d almost forgotten about waking up to Shane curled around him and them staying that way to keep Jack warm. His hand was so much softer than Ryan remembered from their seances. Did he use a special lotion for that?

“Thanks,” Shane said quietly, breaking Ryan’s train of thought. Ryan was still holding the washcloth.

“You’re welcome,” he said, continuing to hold the washcloth.

Shane tapped Ryan’s fingertips. “I’ve got it from here.”

“Right. Sorry,” he said sheepishly as he pulled his hand away.

Shane gave him an odd little smile. “It's okay.”

For the first time since he woke up, Ryan felt hot, his face prickling with sharp heat.

“Shower,” he blurted out.

“What about it?” Shane asked with raised eyebrows.

“I should take one,” Ryan said, immediately turning tail to rummage through his luggage for a change of clothes.

“Have fun.”

As the water fell down his back, Ryan tried not to think of big, soft hands. He was not successful.

* * *

The rest of the morning went smoothly, with no more injuries or awkward hand-lingering. They watched some mildly terrible daytime TV, played games with the jackalopes, and took approximately 12,000 pictures and videos of said jackalopes. Ryan thought it was turning out to be a pretty great lazy Sunday when there was a knock at the door.

“Housekeeping!”

He and Shane shared a panicked look.

“Uh, just a second!” Ryan shouted towards the door before lowering his voice. “We can't leave the babies in here!”

“No duh,” Shane said with a roll of his eyes. “We’ll have to take them with us.”

“Where?”

“It's lunchtime, we could go to the restaurant downstairs.”

“How?! I doubt they allow animals, especially cryptids!” Ryan argued, just on the edge of hysterical.

Shane threw Ryan's hoodie at him. “You have a kangaroo pocket. Use it for its intended purpose.”

“I can’t fit all three of them in this!”

“You can get one, though, right?”

“I guess, but-,”

“Housekeeping!”

Shane took a few long strides to the hotel door and opened it just a crack to tell the cleaning staff they'd be out in five minutes. Next, he zipped up his own hoodie about halfway and picked up Jack.

“I'm going to try something, I promise you'll be okay.”

“ _Okay_.”

Shane carefully tucked Jack in between his hoodie and his shirt. He had to hold his arm right against his chest to keep Jack from sliding out but otherwise it wasn't too noticeable. It helped that Jack had the least amount of antlers.

“Ta-da! How’re you doing in there, buddy?”

“ _Warm._ ”

“That's only two, though,” Ryan said, pulling his hoodie on over his sweater.

Shane scanned the room. “Just wear your big coat and use the pocket again.”

“But won’t that look totally suspicious wearing a winter coat inside?”

“With the heating going in and out, probably not.”

“Fine.”

Five minutes later, Ryan and Shane were nervously waiting on the elevator, smuggling three jackalopes down to the restaurant.

Ryan's life was so fucking weird.

He had his puffy winter coat on, with his hand around Fireball in one pocket and the other in his hoodie pocket to hold Danielle still. They'd explained the plan to all three of them but these were wild, magical baby animals; they weren't exactly predictable. This had to work, though. Ryan couldn't bear the thought of what would happen if they got caught.

“Hey, Ryan,” Shane said as they stepped onto the elevator.

“What?”

“Is that a jackalope in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Ryan glanced down at the protruding bulge of his hoodie pocket. Fucking Shane.

“Cut the comedy, Shane. This is important.”

Shane lightly patted the small lump on his chest. “I know. Just trying to get you to lighten up, that's all.”

While they didn’t encounter anyone on the elevator, the same could not be said for the hotel’s restaurant. With the roads still being plowed, most of their fellow hotel guests had decided to also dine-in, and they were just barely able to get a table. As they were seated right in between a family of five and an elderly couple, Ryan broke out in a sweat. This was all such a bad fucking idea, how the fuck could they expect three baby animals to be quiet and still while they ate? And why had he kept Danielle in his hoodie pocket and not moved her to his other coat pocket? Oh fuck, what if one of them had to go the bathroom? As hilarious as it would be for Jack to piss all over Shane’s chest, it would probably get them kicked out of the hotel really quick. Fuck, they had really, really not thought this through.

“Ryan. It’s going to be okay,” Shane said, giving him a quite pointed stare as soon as the hostess left them with their menus.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

“You didn’t have to. I make my living watching you panic, so I can tell pretty easily when you’re five seconds away from crapping your undies.”

“Alright, alright,” Ryan conceded. “But seriously, dude, we did not think this through. What if they have to poop? What if they get antsy? And I can’t hold onto them while I eat, so what if one of them bolts for it? We are so screwed.”

“Well, hopefully they’ll tell us if they have to go and we can take them to the bathroom. As for the rest, how about you put FB on your lap next to Danielle? Then you can just use one hand to check on them both,” Shane recommended.

It wasn’t a bad idea, and it wasn’t like Ryan had a whole lot of other options, so he followed Shane’s suggestion and covertly brought Fireball onto his lap so she was right next to Danielle in the hoodie pocket.

“Stay there, okay? Please?” Ryan whispered, peering down at her.

She responded by nibbling at a stray thread on Ryan’s jeans, which was just as well. Whatever kept her occupied.

While Ryan knew he was going to be sore later from sitting so rigidly, he actually thought this whole plan was going well. Fireball and Danielle were making no sudden movements in his lap, and the small lump that was Jack was barely noticeable on Shane’s chest. As long as they got their food quickly, Ryan really thought it would go off without a hitch.

And then the waitress came to take their order.

As Ryan was ordering a burger (for himself) and a spinach and kale salad (for the jackalopes), a voice that sounded like Shane but wasn’t _quite_ Shane’s spoke up.

“ _Whiskey!_ ”

Ryan froze as the waitress automatically turned her head towards Shane. He didn’t realize it, however, as his gaze was focused down the space between his hoodie and shirt.

“Pardon?” she asked.

Shane’s head snapped up. “Oh! Heh, sorry,” he said with a strained smile. “Got a little excited there. I would like to order a whiskey neat, if the bar is open.”

“Of course, we can do that! Do you have a brand preference?”

“House is fine.”

“ _Jack Daniels.”_

Shane and Jack-pretending-to-be-Shane spoke at the exact same time. The waitress swiveled her head between Shane and Ryan, clearly confused about where the second voice came from.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

Ryan cleared his throat. “He always says the house is fine but he really wants Jack Daniels, if you have it,” he said, hoping she would buy it.

“We do,” she said.

“Great! What can I say, the man knows me,” Shane said, nodding at Ryan.

The waitress gave them a very tight smile, obviously not sure what to make of them. “I will put your orders in and be back with your drink soon.”

As soon as she left, Shane peered down his hoodie, his eyebrows knitted together.

“Pretty sneaky party trick, there.”

“Shane,” Ryan whispered but he was ignored.

“Impressive, though. You’re a little rascal, aren’t ya?”

“ _What is a rascal?_ ”

“Shane!” Ryan said with a cough.

That finally got his attention. “What?”

“Be. Normal,” Ryan warned through gritted teeth.

Shane finally glanced around and noticed the half-dozen or so people watching him have a conversation with himself. But Shane was never one to be embarrassed, and he just shrugged before taking a sip of water.

“People talk to themselves all the time. You should know.”

“This isn’t the same thing and you know it.”

“Actually, _it is_ ,” Shane said, emphasizing the last two words with a couple taps on the table. “Because who else would I be talking to?”

Shit, he was right. Better to lean into being a weirdo who talked out loud to himself in a crowded restaurant than having people wonder what the hell else could be going on at their table.

“Well, just be quieter,” Ryan said, giving his own smuggled jackalopes a squeeze. “Quiet is good.”

“Noted.”

The waitress soon returned with Shane’s whiskey. The moment she sat the glass down, Ryan felt nails dig into his thighs and something hard poke his stomach. Before he could try to subtly tell the girls that no, they couldn’t have some, a voice that Ryan recognized as vaguely close to his own spoke up from his lap.

“ _Whiskey._ ”

Goddammit.

“Oh, did you want one as well?” the waitress asked Ryan.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” Ryan said, giving Fireball a soft but reprimanding bop on the head.

“Clever girl,” Shane said under his breath once the waitress was gone. “How are they doing this?”

“The Wikipedia page said they imitate humans, remember? I guess they’re literal copycats. Or copyjackalopes.”

“Bit of a mouthful. We gotta come up with something better than-ah!”

Shane winced as the small lump in his hoodie wriggled. Jack must have scratched or bitten him.

“You okay?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah. Just think I should have some of this whiskey,” he said, raising his glass. He took a sip before tipping the glass to the side so that a small bit poured down his shirt. “Oh whoops! Butterfingers,” he added as the liquor seeped through the fabric.

Ryan couldn’t tell if Jack had actually gotten any of the whiskey but he was impressed with Shane’s improvisation all the same. He had a slightly easier time when his own Jack Daniels came, just bringing the glass into his lap for a few seconds at a time. The only downside were the clinks of antlers against the rim but it was noisy enough in the restaurant that no one seemed to notice.

Now that they had their whiskey, the jackalopes quieted down, no longer demanding things of their waitress. Ryan was even able to feed the girls some of the salad, dropping spinach and kale leaves into his lap. Shane did the same for Jack, even though he looked like the messiest eater in the entire restaurant, including the actual baby at the table next to them. His hoodie and button-up were covered in whiskey stains, salad dressing, and bits of shredded carrots and greens that Jack couldn’t get to.

But if Shane cared, he didn’t show it. Of all of Shane’s mystifying qualities, that was always the one that Ryan understood the least. He never gave a flying fuck what people thought of him, whether it be people online or at the office or fellow hotel guests who eyed his stained clothes in disgust.

He’d never tell Shane this but, sometimes, Ryan wished he could be more like him.

He especially wished for that when he felt something warm and wet soak through his jeans, just as their lunch was being served.

“Oh fuck. I mean, crap. Crap crap crap crap,” Ryan babbled as he realized what it was.

“I’m sorry, sir, is there something wrong with the burger?” their embittered waitress asked.

“Sorry, no. Just thinking of...something else. Burger looks great,” Ryan gave her a weak smile.

She didn’t look convinced but she also obviously did not want to further engage with either him or Shane, leaving them with a curt “Enjoy your meal!”

“This is so bad. So bad. We’re so screwed,” Ryan said, his mind racing. He fucking knew they should have planned better for this. They should have just put them in Ryan’s backpack with a bunch of toilet paper or something, instead of Shane’s half-assed pocket hiding. Now Ryan was covered in jackalope piss in the middle of a restaurant and someone was going to notice and they were completely fucking fucked.

“You okay over there?”

“They’re gonna get found and throw them out in the cold and they’ll die and it’s all gonna be my fault.”

“So, that’s a no,” Shane said before reaching his hand across the table to snap his fingers in front of Ryan’s face. “Ryan. What happened?”

Eyes focused on Shane’s fingers right in front of him, Ryan stopped babbling long enough to formulate the most covert way to tell Shane what happened.

“Code yellow. In my lap.”

Shane’s mouth twisted, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip as his shoulders shook.

“No way.”

“Don’t you dare laugh. This is all your fault,” Ryan glared, pointing an accusing finger with his free hand.

“ _My_ fault?!” Shane said with a disbelieving wheeze. “How?”

“You suggested I put her in my lap! I should have just left her in the coat. No, scratch that, we should have just told housekeeping we didn’t need the room cleaned. But no, you had all your stupid pocket ideas and now here I am with you-know-what soaking through my favorite jeans,” Ryan ranted, his voice a raging whisper.

Shane slid out of his chair and stepped over towards him. “Put on your coat.”

Ryan frowned up at him. “Wh-what? Why?”

“I’ve got an idea.”

“Oh great, because that’s gone so well for us so far.”

Shane sighed. “Just do it, okay?”

Ryan slipped his coat back on, careful not to jostle the jackalopes in his lap while he did it. “Now what?”

“Sorry in advance.”

“Sorry for-,” Ryan started but he was cut off by Shane pressing his mouth against Ryan’s and his left hand cupped around Ryan’s cheek.

In his shock, Ryan let go of Fireball and he had a split-second of panic when he felt her weight leave his lap. But just as quickly, his coat pocket that was closest to Shane grew heavy and Ryan put it all together.

“Should be good to go. I’ll get your lunch wrapped up,” Shane said as he pulled back.

“Uh, okay,” Ryan said, still in a bit of a daze. He had never in a million years expected to be kissed by Shane and his brain will still catching up to the fact that he had.

“I’ll see you back in the room. Hopefully you’ll be feeling better by then,” Shane said, giving Ryan’s chair a kick before adding under his breath. “This is your out. Go.”

“Right.”

With his hands curled back around the jackalopes, Ryan made his way out of the restaurant. He was garnering a few stares but he couldn’t be sure if they were from the jackalope pee smell or from being kissed by a man covered in ranch dressing and whiskey stains. Or maybe it was both.

Ryan glanced back at Shane once he was at the exit. He was taking a bite of his pastrami on rye when he spotted Ryan looking back. It was hard to tell from this far away but Ryan was pretty sure Shane winked at him before he dropped a french fry down his hoodie. Ryan couldn’t help but to grin, even as he wondered if french fries were not the best snack for a baby jackalope.

* * *

The cleaning crew was just leaving their hotel room when Ryan arrived, much to his relief. Once inside, he quickly set Danielle and Fireball down so they could run around and he could get to cleaning his pants. It wasn’t a big stain but it was still going to take a lot of elbow grease to get the smell out.

As he scrubbed with the world’s smallest bar of soap, Ryan couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. He realized Shane had just done it because Ryan was freaking out too much to sneak Fireball back into his pocket himself, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been a decent kiss. Shane’s lips were surprisingly soft, and his hand had fit itself nicely around Ryan’s cheek. He also smelled like a bottle of ranch dressing, and Ryan was not ashamed to admit that it added to the appeal.

He stopped scrubbing, staring at a fixed point on his soapy jeans. Appeal? Hang on, there was no _appeal_ to kissing Shane. Shane was Ryan’s big goofy friend and co-worker. There was nothing _appealing_ about him, with his giant, weird face and too-long, noodly limbs and his disinterest in sports and his hard-nosed skepticism. All of that was about as appealing as Shane curled up around Ryan to keep him warm in the middle of a chilly night. That would only be appealing if Shane kissed the back of Ryan's neck and ran his hand down Ryan's chest and stomach until--

Ryan’s dick twitched in his briefs and the soap slipped from his hand, thunking against the sink.

Ah shit.

Shane _was_ appealing, wasn’t he? With his silly jokes and big, soft hands and the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled and his willingness to roll with almost any crazy bullshit Ryan threw at him, including taking in three baby jackalopes. Ryan tried to think of any of his other close friends that would have even let him bring them into the hotel in the first place. He couldn’t.

The front door clicked, the familiar noise of a keycard being successfully swiped.

 _Shit_. Ryan would realize he had the hots for Shane while he was pantsless and sharing a hotel room with him. He really should have put his sweatpants on before washing his jeans.

“We’re back! And with food!”

“Cool,” Ryan shouted, wincing when his voice came out higher pitched than he intended. “Be out in a sec.”

Ryan rinsed the suds off his pants and hung them up to dry before giving himself a whispered pep talk in the mirror.

“Play it cool, Ryan. It's just a dumb crush, you’ll figure it out later. Just don't be weird.”

And then Ryan stepped out of the bathroom to see Shane shirtless and bent over his suitcase that was laid out on the bed closest to where Ryan was standing.

Of course.

Ryan swallowed as he told himself to get his shit together. _You’ve seen the big guy shirtless a ton of times, it’s not a big deal. Just step past him and don’t look._

But Ryan couldn’t stop looking. There was a small cluster of freckles at Shane’s lower back that Ryan had never noticed before. They were sort of in the outline of a lopsided star, how did that even-

“ _OW!_ ”

To Ryan’s complete and utter horror, he looked down to see Danielle sprinting away from him, as he had just stepped on her foot.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry!” Ryan shouted, his heart in his throat. She’d bolted underneath the desk, as far away from him as possible.

“What the heck did you do?” Shane asked, twisting around. “That sounded like a human child being stabbed.”

Ryan rushed over to the desk and got down on his hands and knees. “I accidentally stepped on her.”

“Dude.”

“I know, I’m a monster,” he said, reaching out a hand to the cowering Danielle. “I’m so sorry, little girl. I didn’t mean to. Are you okay?”

“ _Hurts_ ,” she whimpered, holding up her front paw. A scorching amount of shame burned through Ryan’s entire body. The electric chair would be too good for him.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Will you let me look at it?”

“ _I did everything you said. I was quiet_ _and did not move,_ ” she said as she shied away from Ryan’s hand.

“I know you did. You were so good,” Ryan told her, his voice cracking from the guilt. He had to make this right. “Your sister and brother could learn a thing or two from you.”

She wiggled her nose at that. “ _They could?”_

“Oh yeah. You’re always looking out for them, setting a good example. I bet you’re the oldest, aren’t you?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“I knew it. I’m the oldest, too. I only have one little brother but I know how hard it can be, trust me.”

Danielle took a hop forward to rub her forehead against Ryan’s outstretched fingers. “ _Is it always hard?”_

“No. Most of the time it’s great. Plus, it’s fun to be the one in charge when mom’s away, right?”

“ _Yes! I choose all the games we play_.”

Ryan beckoned her forward so he could scoop her up in his hands. “Like what? We can play one now.”

“ _Stick throw!”_ she said excitedly, allowing Ryan to pick her up.

“Let me guess. Someone throws a stick and the other one goes after it?”

“ _Yes!”_

Ryan scooted back out from under the desk, cradling Danielle securely against his chest. When he emerged, Shane was watching him with a warm smile and crinkled eyes.

“Some monster you are.”

“If I got smited right now, I’d deserve it,” Ryan said as he gently rubbed Danielle’s paw.

Shane reached out to scratch Danielle’s forehead in between her antlers. “Nah. I think you’re forgiven.”

Ryan smiled, his skin warm with a different kind of heat now. Shane was still shirtless and he was so close that Ryan could smell the remnants of his lunch on him. It had been awhile since he'd seen Shane topless this up close and personal. His chest and stomach had a slight definition to it that Ryan didn't recall. Had Shane been working out? Since when? And why hadn't he told Ryan?

Before Ryan could ask, though, Shane was pulling on a fresh t-shirt and taking his stained clothes into the bathroom. More confused than he wanted to admit, Ryan sat on a bed with his lunch and the jackalopes.

“ _Stick throw?”_ Danielle asked, sitting up on her back legs.

“Oh, right.” He picked up one of the hotel pens from the nightstand and tossed it for her to chase on the bed. “Sorry it's not a proper stick.”

She didn't care, immediately returning it for Ryan to throw again. Jack hopped over to him as well, but he didn't seem interested in the fetch game.

“Hey, no more fries for you,” Ryan told him, yanking one away. “I bet Shane gave you too many as it is.”

“ _He said they were part of our little secret.”_

“Part of a secret? What else did he feed you?”

Jack hopped into the lid of the takeout box to try and get at the fries but Ryan grabbed him before he could and set him on his shoulder, like a parrot.

“ _Nothing. It was about you.”_

“What?” Ryan asked as his heart skipped a beat. “What about me?”

“ _Fries,”_ Jack said, pointing an antler down at them. Damn, he was smart. Maybe too smart.

“Ugh, fine.” Ryan held a couple fries up for him. “Now spill.”

“ _He likes you too much,”_ he said after munching on a fry.

“Likes me too much? What the crap does that mean?”

“ _I shouldn’t have done that,_ ” Jack said in his best Shane impression. It was getting scarily accurate. “ _I think I like him too much. But that’s our little secret, okay? Along with these_.”

“What does that mean?” Ryan asked again, his voice low.

Jack had no explanation and just continued to chow down on his french fries. How do you like someone too much? What did that mean? And what shouldn’t Shane have done?

Ryan knew he should just ask Shane once he was done cleaning his shirts, but the words didn’t come. Besides, Ryan wasn’t supposed to know and he wasn’t about to narc on Jack, even if the little dude didn’t seem to understand what secrets were anyway. And hell, maybe Jack was pulling his leg to get more fries. He was a crafty baby jackalope, after all.

So instead, when Shane came back out into the room to eat his own boxed up lunch, Ryan just made small talk about how happy their waitress must have been to be rid of them (“Extremely,” according to Shane. “I’ve never seen anyone literally run takeout containers to a table before.”) and how dire the daytime television options were. It was like any old day again, albeit with three baby cryptids running around and chasing after pens and french fries.

Ryan put Jack’s secret and his own crush out of his mind. He’d have to deal with it once they were back home, but for now, he wanted to spend as much time with these goofy little jackalopes as possible while he could. He was dreading saying goodbye to them so much that he caught himself daydreaming about taking them home and passing them off as rabbits with that tumor virus. He really did miss having pets, but dogs were too much commitment for all the traveling he did. But talking jackalopes...they could probably take care of themselves as easily as a cat could, right? Plus, they could be Unsolved’s mascots, wearing tiny (wheeze) beanies with holes cut in the top for their antlers!

He pictured it, him and Shane on set with Jack, Danielle, and Fireball hopping around them in the little hats while TJ groused at them for ruining his shots. Maybe Shane would loop his arm Ryan’s shoulders as he encouraged them to misbehave. Maybe Ryan would lean in to him just after catching Jack from jumping off the table. Maybe Shane would smile down at them before leaning in to give Ryan a kiss. A kiss he didn’t apologize for.

Back in reality, Ryan shook his head to force his brain to think of anything else. So much for putting that crush out of his mind.

* * *

It was after seven o’clock when the phone rang. The heating system was officially back on for good, and the hotel was offering each room a free pay-per-view movie on the house for their patience during the ordeal.

“Oooh, what should we watch?” Ryan asked, pulling up the menu.

“Nothin’ dirty, we have impressionable youths in the room,” Shane said, motioning to the jackalopes all crowded around the room service salad they were eating for dinner.

Ryan scrolled through the options. “Duh. Let’s see, looks like they’ve mostly got stuff from last year...hey, we could show them Infinity War to make sure they know how terrible Vision is. Every kid should know that.”

“So much worldbuilding to explain though,” Shane said before pointing at the TV. “Hey! Mission Impossible is on there! There we go, easy peasy.”

“Is that really appropriate though?” Ryan asked with a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s pretty violent.”

“It’s not really bloody, though! And besides, it’s PG-13.”

“Yeah, I don’t know…,” Ryan trailed off, not convinced it was the right pick. He loved the movie (although not as much as Shane but no one loved those movies as much as Shane) but it just didn’t feel right showing something so loud and action-packed to the babies. They needed something more kid-friendly, more wholesome, something like…

“Paddington 2!” Ryan gasped, his face splitting into a wide grin. “Nope, we’re watching this instead. Sorry big guy.”

“Oh come on! You’ve seen that a dozen times already! I’ve only seen Fallout a measly four,” Shane protested.

Ryan clicked on the “order” button. “Don’t care. It was the best movie of last year and it’s totally baby jackalope appropriate. And Paddington talks! Just like them!”

“God, you are such a dork.”

“Whatever. Not all great cinema involves Tom Cruise running a lot, you know.”

Shane was not convinced but Ryan didn’t care. The jackalopes would be sure to love this movie, it was going to be a homerun.

At least, that’s what Ryan thought.

“ _What is that?!”_ Jack yelled as soon as the movie started.

"That’s Uncle Pastuzo and Aunt Lucy! They’re Paddington’s parents, basically,” Ryan explained. “They’re about to find him as a cub in this river.”

“ _But they are bears!”_

“Well, yeah. Paddington is a talking bear, kind of like you guys!”

Danielle and Fireball pointedly turned around from the TV while Jack scrambled up the bed to hide his face in Shane’s side.

“ _Bears are bad,”_ he said, his voice muffled by Shane’s sweatpants.

Shane could not contain the euphoria on his face. He looked like he had won the Best Picture Academy Award for the live-action adaptation of the Hot Daga . “You know, Jack, I have heard they are the world’s most dangerous animal.”

Jack whimpered, rubbing his antlers against Shane’s hip while Ryan glared at Shane.

“Shut up, Shane.”

Shane did not shut up. “Oh yeah, _supposedly_ they can take on any animal in any arena. Even in the water against a shark or a hippopotamus! They’re really nasty, very scary.”

“Paddington isn’t that kind of bear! He wears clothes!”

“I hardly see how clothes make a vicious animal like a bear any less deadly.”

“He is a precious bear who enriches the lives of everyone he meets!” Ryan said, furious that Shane was so easily using his own words against him. “Don’t you dare besmirch him any further!”

“Hey, I’m just repeating what a very smart person once said to me. Unless said person was maybe an idiot, I don’t have any reason not to believe him,” Shane said with a shit-eating grin that put the Cheshire Cat to shame.

“I hate you.”

Jack made a strange cry, burrowing up Shane’s side until he was tucked in under his arm.“Now look what you’ve done, you’ve upset him even more. And the girls aren’t too happy, either,” Shane pointed out.

Danielle and Fireball were huddled against each other and trembling, their dinner ignored.

“Fine,” Ryan said miserably, backing out of the crowning cinematic achievement, Paddington 2. “You win.”

“Hey, I didn’t force them to be terrified of their natural predator,” Shane said as he pulled Jack up onto his chest.

Ryan selected Mission Impossible: Fallout on the TV. “You enjoyed that, though. A lot.”

“I did. I really did,” Shane admitted. “I never have understood that, though. How is your favorite fictional character a _bear_ , of all things?”

“He’s not like other bears-,”

“Hashtag Not All Bears?” Shane cut-in.

Despite how annoyed Ryan was, he couldn’t help but to laugh at that. “Paddington is pure and good, he would never use Twitter.”

“Now that I agree with.”

Much to Ryan’s chagrin, the jackalopes very much enjoyed Mission Impossible, especially Fireball. She was captivated by the television for the entire running time, especially during the chase scenes. Who would have ever guessed?

When it was time to turn in for the night, Ryan curled up in his own bed while Shane did the same in his. The heat was back on so there was no need for shared body heat, and the jackalopes hadn’t found a spot for the night, yet, so there was no risk of disturbing them. But just as Ryan was about to turn the nightstand lamp off, he realized they were squabbling with each other. Danielle was biting Fireball’s ear and Fireball was kicking at Jack who was making a very cute and non-threatening growl at both of them.

“What’s the matter?” Ryan asked them.

“ _We do not know where to sleep,”_ Jack said in between growls.

“ _I want to sleep with you,”_ Danielle said. “ _But she wants to sleep with Shane.”_

_“His hair is softer!”_

_“And Ryan is warmer!”_ Danielle said before gnawing on Fireball’s ear some more.

“ _And I just want us all to sleep together like we always do,”_ Jack said.

Ryan looked across to Shane who had perked up at the sound of his own name. Shane knelt down on the floor next to them.

“Jack, how about you and FB sleep with me and Danielle can sleep with Ryan. That’s close enough, right?”

“ _I guess.”_

“Wait,” Ryan said before he could stop himself. “Why don’t we all just sleep in the same bed? If that’s okay with everyone.”

“ _Yes!”_ Jack cheered.

Shane eyed him, biting his lower lip. “Are you sure?”

Ryan scooted over and patted the mattress. “Yeah. It’ll be fine, just like last night.”

“Okay. C’mon, kiddos.”

Shane and the jackalopes piled into Ryan’s bed. Danielle curled up against Ryan’s head while Fireball did the same to Shane, and Jack settled in between them. Ryan and Shane were both on their sides, facing each other.

“Goodnight baby jackalopes,” Shane sang in soft voice. “May you dream of whiskey and cantaloupe.”

“Cantaloupe?” Ryan interrupted. “Do they even eat that?”

“Hey, not a lot rhymes with jackalope,” Shane said before returning to his singing voice. “Sleep soundly against our heads, for our hair makes excellent beds. Goodnight baby jackalopes.”

“ _May you dream of whiskey_ ,” Danielle sang, her voice matching Shane’s pitch perfectly.

“ _And cantaloupe,”_ Fireball joined in.

Then it was Jack’s turn. “ _Sleep soundly against our heads.”_

“For our hair makes excellent beds,” Ryan sang, very off-pitch but no one seemed to care, least of all Shane. The smile on his face was so big that it looked like it hurt. Ryan returned it with one of his own, warmth spreading like wildfire through his body. He thought seeing Shane forced to accept the jackalopes as real was the greatest moment of his life. He was so wrong.

“Goodnight baby jackalopes,” Shane finished with a flourish on the final syllable. As Shane gave the babies all a final goodnight pet, Ryan’s heart leapt into his throat. Whatever he was feeling for Shane right now was so intense, he felt like he was going to burst. It was so much, _too_ much…

“ _He likes you too much.”_

Jack’s words echoed in his mind, finally making some kind of sense. If Ryan was right, if Shane’s feelings for him were even remotely similar to his own...holy shit.

Ryan knew he should give it some time. Gather more evidence, test the waters, figure out his own crush. To go for it, right now, was insane. Terrifying, even.

But Ryan didn’t know how to back down from diving into something that terrified him. He had to charge into it, whether it be a scary movie or a haunted asylum or finding out if his friend had romantic feelings for him.

So he charged.

Taking a deep breath, Ryan slid his trembling hand across the sheets until he found Shane’s. Shane twitched, pulling it in closer to himself, but Ryan was undeterred. He parted Shane’s fingers with his own to lace them together.

“Ryan,” Shane breathed, his entire body going stiff as a board.

As usual, Ryan had not thought this through, and had no clue what to do next. He didn’t know how to explain what he was feeling or why he was feeling it. But he had to say something, had to make sure Shane didn’t let go. Something reassuring, something that would convey even just a little bit that they were in this together, whatever “this” was.

“Do you use hand lotion?”

Ryan cringed immediately. His stupid brain was so fucking stupid.

Shane huffed out a soft laugh, flexing his fingers. “Yeah. You want some?”

“Not right now, but sure.”

Shane waited a beat before speaking again. “Is…is that it? Just interested in my skincare regimen?”

His voice was light with an edge of laughter to it that Ryan recognized as one of the few signs that Shane was nervous. It was subtle, not all that different from Shane’s regular speaking manner, but Ryan knew it was there just as he had when he watched Shane laugh at the bats inches away from his head at Yuma Prison.

“No,” Ryan said, swallowing his own nervous tics down. He was not going to ruin this with babbling.

“So, what is it?”

“I think. I think I like you,” he admitted quietly.

Shane’s hand twitched in his. “Oh.”

Ryan kept going, unable to stop himself. So much for not ruining this with babbling. “And I think you do too. Like me, that is. In _this_ way.” He squeezed Shane’s hand. “But I don’t know why and it just sort of happened and then Jack said you liked me ‘too much’ and I didn’t even know what the fuck that meant. Except now I think I do, because when you were singing to them, I thought my heart might burst I was so happy, like it was too much. And now I’m holding your hand and spilling my guts and I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

When he finished, Shane didn’t say anything and Ryan’s heart began to beat violently in his ears. Holy fuck, what if he had totally misread this whole situation? Fuck fuck fuck. He needed Shane to say something, _anything_...

“Well, this is inconvenient,” Shane said, not alleviating Ryan’s fears one goddamn bit.

Ryan gulped. “It is?”

“Yeah. Because now I want to kiss the pants off of you but we have baby jackalopes attached to our heads like cute cockblocking barnacles.”

Ryan grinned so hard his cheeks ached. He was right about jackalopes being real and he was right about this. He was like the Lakers going back-to-back in ‘09 and ‘10. “You do?”

“Oh Ryan, _of course_ I do. Why do you think I kissed you in the restaurant? My dumbass couldn’t think of anything else. You and your gorgeously toned arms turn my brain to mush.”

“You couldn’t even see my arms in all the layers I was wearing, though.”

“That’s how distracting they are! I’m like a Victorian gentlemen catching sight of an ankle and being consumed with lust for the rest of the week.” Shane let go of Ryan’s hand to run his hand up Ryan’s arm until he could squeeze his bicep. “Good God, they’re even more solid than I thought.”

“How much have you thought about them?” Ryan asked, his breath hitching.

“A lot,” he admitted quietly.

Ryan reached out to place his hand on Shane’s cheek, the stubble scraping his palm. This was all happening so fast but Ryan didn’t care. He wanted to kiss Shane so badly.

“Scoot them up just a little,” Ryan said. “They’ll adjust.”

Shane gently pushed the jackalopes a few inches away until he had enough space to scoot closer to Ryan. The jackalopes snuffled a bit in protest but quickly resettled. Then, for the second time that day, Shane leaned in to press his lips against Ryan’s.

With their movement restricted, it wasn’t the best angle, but it was a hell of a kiss all the same. Shane’s lips were still so soft and the way he slid his tongue alongside Ryan’s was so self-assured, like he knew exactly what Ryan would like. Ryan kissed him back, threading his fingertips into Shane’s hair to rub small circles against his scalp. Shane gasped against his mouth, his hips snapping forward against Ryan’s. Shane was already half-hard, which would normally be hot as fuck, but instead was just inconvenient.

“Wait,” Ryan said, pulling back. “We can’t.”

“I know,” Shane said through gritted teeth. “I told you, they’re the world’s most adorable cockblockers.”

Ryan flicked his eyes up to the pile of jackalopes. They really were the cutest. “So, what do we do now?”

“I don’t know, you’re the one who started this. What did you think would happen?”

“I didn’t think that far ahead.”

“Oh Ryan,” Shane said fondly as he laid his hand on Ryan’s that was still in his hair. “I don’t know what I expected.”

Ryan kicked at his shin. “Hey!”

“I mean it in a good way!” he clarified. “You always jump into things, consequences be damned. I wish I could be more like that.”

“Really?”

Shane slid his fingers in between Ryan’s. “Everyone always thinks I’m the brave one since I don’t get scared on our investigations and it’s so backwards. Why would I be scared? I don’t think anything is there. But _you_ do. And you go anyway. Like with the jackalopes. You went after them immediately and didn’t even question helping them. Meanwhile, I wrote off Danielle calling for help as the wind. And even after we found them, and I thought they were rabbits, I don’t think I would have so easily brought them into the hotel. I probably would have just told the front desk person they had some baby rabbits outside and been done with it. I take the easy way out. You never do. And I love that.”

Ryan felt his palm sweat against Shane’s head and his own face flush. As much as he liked hearing that, it felt like Shane was giving him way too much credit.

“I think you’re brave. You can just say or do stuff without worrying what people think. Like at lunch, you didn’t give a shit that you were covered in booze and salad and that everyone thought you were talking to yourself. At the same time, I almost had a panic attack from a little jackalope pee.”

Shane shrugged. “That’s not bravery, that’s just me being a weird theater kid. Trust me, if I was actually brave you would already know that I’ve been daydreaming about your stupid, beautiful arms for months now, like a teenager who writes SM+RB 4EVER in his planner.”

Ryan’s mouth went dry. “...Months?”

For the first time all night, Shane broke eye contact, instead looking up at the snoozing jackalopes. “Yeah. At first I thought I was just jealous of you being such a beefcake-,”

Ryan snorted. “I am not a beefcake.”

“So your Instagram is flooded with ‘daddy’ comments for no reason? Please.” Shane rolled his eyes before continuing. “Anyway, so I started working out, thinking getting in a little bit better shape was what it was about and that’d be the end of it. But it wasn’t and then I realized it never was. It was about _you_.”

“Shane…,” Ryan said quietly, heart in his throat.

“But I still didn’t do anything about it. Because I’m not brave, and despite what you said, I _do_ care what people think about me. Well, a people. A person. One person,” Shane said, his eyes flicking back to Ryan.

Ryan said a silent apology to the jackalopes before he launched himself at Shane, pushing him onto his back so that Ryan could kiss him good and proper and deep. Shane scrambled to wrap his arms around him, holding Ryan tight against his chest. But, of course, the jackalopes all awoke and they were less than pleased.

“ _Your head should be on the pillow, Ryan_ ,” Danielle groused.

“I know. Just give me a second,” he said, his forehead pressed against Shane’s.

“ _Maybe he is realizing how good of a bed Shane’s head is,”_ Fireball suggested.

“Maybe we can go into the bathroom,” Shane suggested in a low whisper as he rubbed Ryan’s back.

“ _What is happening in the bathroom?_ ” Jack asked.

“Nothing, buddy,” Ryan said before mouthing to Shane. “They’d hear us.”

Shane sighed. “So cute, so inconvenient.”

“I know. We’ll make up for it though. I promise.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

Ryan kissed him again, forcing himself to keep it closed mouth. He wanted more so badly, but there was no way while the jackalopes were around. But as he and Shane curled up around each other, their legs tangled together and their arms around each other’s backs, he could not deny how amazing it felt. He could really get used to sleeping like this, especially with the baby jackalopes snuggled up around them, too. As he drifted back to sleep, Ryan hoped for more snow. It would be nice to be stranded here for a few more days. The rest of the world could wait.

* * *

“Ryan.”

“Mmhm.”

“Wake up.”

"No.”

“Yes. Something’s going on with the babies.”

Ryan’s eyes flew open but he didn’t have to ask what Shane meant. Sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out the window were all three jackalopes, their antlers all emitting a bright, white glow.

“What the fuck?” Ryan said, too sleepy and confused to watch his language.

“I don’t know. I felt them get up and when I opened my eyes they were doing this,” Shane said as he handed Ryan his glasses.

“Guys, what’s going on? How are you doing this?” Ryan asked them.

Jack turned around. Only his regular antler was glowing, the short one was still dull and brown. “ _Mother is back and she is calling us._ ”

Ryan’s chest tightened. “Oh. She is? That’s…that’s great.”

“ _Yes. She is outside, looking for us.”_

“Yeah, of course. Give us a minute to get ready, we’ll take you down,” Ryan said around a lump in his throat.

Even though Ryan knew that his daydream of taking the jackalopes home was impossible, he still thought he’d have more time with them. He wanted to see if they could sing along to some Disney songs and feed them cantaloupe and take a thousand more pictures. Now he just had a handful of minutes left and there wasn’t time for any of it.

Ryan coughed, trying to quell the tears, but they came anyway. Without saying a word, Shane handed him some tissues, his own eyes red at the rims. Shane wasn’t nearly as emotional as Ryan and seeing him like that...it hit Ryan in the gut.

After getting dressed and taking as many pics as they could, it was time. Ryan carefully put Danielle and Jack in his coat pockets while Shane did the same with Fireball. It was early, the sun was just beginning to peak out over the horizon, so the hotel was quiet. On the elevator ride down, Shane wrapped his left arm around Ryan’s shoulders and pulled him in close.

“We can do this,” he told Ryan.

“It’s gonna suck, though.”

Shane leaned down to press a kiss to the side of Ryan’s head. “Yup.”

They walked around to the same side parking lot of the hotel where they found the jackalopes less than 48 hours earlier. Had it only been that long? It felt like a lifetime ago.

As they stepped around the piles of snow, the jackalopes’ antlers abruptly went back to normal. Ryan tugged Danielle out of his pocket.

“What’s going on? Is she still here?” he asked her, doing his very best to keep the hope out of his voice.

“ _Yes. She does not know you are with us so she must be hiding."_

At that, a low, powerful voice rang out from behind the dead bushes. If Ryan didn’t know better he would have thought it was Viola Davis, it was that commanding.

“ _Daughter?_ ”

Danielle scrambled to get out of Ryan’s hold, shallowly scratching him a few times in the process.

“ _Mother!_ ”

And then the biggest goddamn jackalope or rabbit or rabbit-adjacent animal Ryan had ever seen jumped out of the bushes.

She was almost two feet long and nearly as tall, with her long upright ears folded around her massive antlers. Ryan was not ashamed to admit she was more than a little intimidating.

“ _You have my children._ ” It was not a question, more like an accusation.

“Yeah, uh, we do. We were taking care of them when the weather got bad,” Ryan explained as he knelt down on the asphalt. He couldn’t bring himself to let go of Danielle, even as she squirmed in his hands.

Shane knelt down next to him. “Yup, all three, uh, ma’am.”

“ _Oh! Mother is a ma’am?_ ” Fireball asked from Shane’s pocket.

He chuckled as he pulled her out and held her up in front of his face. “Yeah, FB. We found you a ma’am.”

Shane then rubbed his nose against hers before setting her down. She hopped to her mother’s side and nestled up against her.

 _"Where is my son?”_ their mother asked, clearly impatient.

“He’s here,” Ryan said as he reluctantly let go of Danielle. She sprinted to her mother, pressing her nose against her side. Ryan then pulled Jack out of his other pocket, but like his sister, Ryan couldn’t let go.

“Ryan,” Shane said softly as he laid a hand on Ryan’s shoulder again.

“I know. Just give me a minute,” he sniffed, holding Jack up in front of his face. “Be safe out there, okay? That goes for all of you.”

“ _Yes, Ryan,_ ” Jack said before licking Ryan’s palm. Oh God, Ryan did not know how to do this. How could he go the rest of his life without them? Maybe he could quit Buzzfeed, move to Wyoming and open the world’s first and only jackalope reservation. That would be a nice life, right?

But then a big, soft hand was lifting Jack out of Ryan’s own and reality came crashing down around him like a tidal wave. Fuck. This was so much harder than he ever expected it to be.

Shane gave Jack a prolonged chin scratch before setting him down. He eagerly hopped over to his family and huddled with them. Meanwhile, Shane’s hand found Ryan’s and held it tight.

“So, um. It was, uh, really great meeting you guys,” Shane said to them. “I hope you can stay warm through the rest of the winter and everything.”

The mother didn’t pay any attention to him as she licked and prodded at her babies, especially Jack. Now that they were out of reach, Ryan just wanted to get out of here. He couldn’t stand to look at them knowing he would never play with them or feed them inappropriate food or talk to them ever again.

Standing up, he tugged on Shane’s hand. “We should go.”

Shane followed. “You sure? I know it’s cold but maybe we can give it a few more minutes.”

“No,” Ryan said, having to turn away from the jackalopes. “I can’t,” he added under his breath.

Shane nodded and turned around with him, his hand still clasped right around Ryan’s. Ryan focused on the pressure to keep himself together, at least until they got back to their room.

They only got a few steps.

“ _Wait._ ”

Ryan pivoted back around so quickly he nearly slipped. Danielle and Fireball were sitting on either side of their mother, like bookends, while Jack was in front of her curled up in a loaf.

“ _Take him with you,_ ” the mother said, nodding to her son.

What?

“What?”

“ _Take him with you,”_ she repeated. “ _He does not have a chance out here. With you, he does._ ”

“What?” Ryan asked again, not comprehending her at all. Take Jack with them? How? Where? When? Now? What?

“Oh Missus…Miss? Miss Jackalope, we would love to but we don’t live here. We live out in California, it’s hundreds and hundreds of miles away,” Shane told her.

“ _Even better. It is warm there, yes?”_

“Yeah, but there aren’t jackalopes out there, as far as I know,” Shane said.

“ _You took care of him already, would you not continue to do so?”_

“Oh, well, yeah, but-,”

“ _Then take him. I know this land and I know its weather. He will not survive a snow like that again, even with my help._ ”

“Okay,” Ryan blurted out.

Shane turned to Ryan, staring down at him. Ryan braced himself for the “You’re out of your mind, Ryan” face, the scrunched up nose and the narrowed eyes, followed up by the lecture. “You can’t do this, Ryan. He’s a wild animal, Ryan. He fucking _talks_ , Ryan.” All valid points, but Ryan’s mind was made up. He was doing this, no matter what Shane said.

“We’ll have to rent a car.”

Okay, Ryan could admit when he was wrong.

“What? Why?”

“You think we can convince the airlines that Jack is your emotional support jackalope? No way. But we can drive home, make a road trip out of it,” Shane said.

“Fair enough, but I can drive it alone, you don’t have to-,” Ryan started but Shane cut him off, clapping his hands on Ryan’s shoulders.

“I’m jumping in, Ryan. If you’re doing this, I’m going to do it with you.”

Ryan got that same feeling in his chest again, like when Shane sang to the babies. It was so much, _too much_ , but in the best way possible.

He gave Shane’s wrists a squeeze before kneeling back down on the asphalt, right in front of Jack.

“Would you want to come home with me, little dude?”

“ _Yes. It is very cold out here_ ,” he shivered, looking at the hotel.

“Home isn’t here, bud. It’s very far away, but it never gets cold like this, I promise.”

Jack looked back to his family and then to Ryan again. “ _Are they coming too_?”

Ryan’s stomach flipped as he tried to think of a way to answer that but Jack’s mother got there first.

“ _No. Our place is here.”_

 _“We will miss you!”_ Danielle said as she hopped to give Jack an affectionate ear nibble.

“ _Yes and I am jealous you get to keep sleeping in Shane’s hair,”_ Fireball said. Shane let out a small chuckle at that.

After giving his family one last round of snuggles, Jack hopped into Ryan’s outstretched hands.

“ _Goodbye._ ”

With Shane’s arm wrapped around him and Jack huddled in his hands, Ryan watched as the three jackalopes hopped into the snowy field beyond the parking lot until they were no more than three dots on the horizon.

* * *

It took a few hours to get on the road. They had to pack, cancel their flight, get a rental car, and pick up supplies, which included a trip to a pet store for rabbit litter and food. Once they got started, though, they made up some time. The highways were cleared of snow so it was just open road for as far as they could see.

Jack was pretty quiet through it all, sitting on Ryan’s or Shane’s lap in the car. Ryan tried to play car games with him, but 20 Questions and The Alphabet Game weren’t exactly Jack’s strong suit. Ryan couldn’t imagine what he was going through, leaving the only home and family he’d ever known with two knuckleheads he’d just met. He and Shane kept trying to cheer him up with music but nothing was working.

“Okay, if this doesn’t work, I officially give up,” Shane said from the passenger seat. Jack was  quietly sitting on Shane’s knee while Shane controlled the Spotify playlist.

“ _I’ve been cheated by you since you know when,”_ came out of the car speakers.

“Pulling out the big guns, huh?” Ryan asked with a grin, turning the volume up. It was one of his and Shane’s most favorite songs - ABBA’s “Mamma Mia” as covered by a random white dude on YouTube who flew to Japan to sing it in a river. It was not, as they say, _good,_ but it was hilarious and fascinating and he and Shane loved it.

But even though Ryan and Shane sang obnoxiously along to it, Jack didn’t seem to be into it, either. Damn, maybe he just wasn’t a musically inclined jackalope.

“Hey, go back to my Disney playlist. There’s _got_ to be something on there,” Ryan said as the song was winding down.

“Dude, no. Like every good millennial, I love The Lion King but I cannot listen to ‘Just Can’t Wait to be King’ one more time.”

“Try something newer, like Moana. It’s got good-,”

“ _Again._ ”

For the first time in over an hour, Jack spoke, right as “Mamma Mia” ended. Ryan and Shane exchanged tentative glances before Shane scratched at Jack’s back.

“You wanna hear that song again?”

“ _Yes._ ”

Shane hit repeat and this time, when Austin Weber started singing, Jack was backing him up. A giant grin erupted on Ryan’s face. Finally.

“I KNEW IT. I knew our son would have to love this song!” Shane shouted triumphantly.

Ryan was too excited about Jack getting his groove back to immediately register what Shane said. It wasn’t until the chorus was coming in for the second time that he realized it.

“‘Our son’, huh?”

Shane paused from singing with Jack, who was now in Shane’s hands and bobbing his antler along to the beat. “It’s just a saying. I call Obi my large, orange son all the time.”

“I know. It’s just…' _our_ ’?” Ryan asked, glancing over at him.

“I mean. Is he not?”

Ryan thought about it and realized Shane was right. Shane had jumped right in, just as deep as Ryan had.

“He is. But he’s gonna live with me, on account of your large, orange son being our tiny, antlered son’s natural predator.”

Shane gasped. “Ryan! How dare you besmirch Obi’s good name! Did you learn _nothing_ from Zootopia?!”

“Dude, I’m just being realistic!”

“They’ll be best bros, I know it. You’ll see.”

Ryan wasn’t so sure but he let it drop, still too delighted by Jack’s love for the lo-fi “Mamma Mia” cover. Shane put on an ABBA playlist next, and Jack continued to perk up, hopping and bobbing along on Shane’s lap. Who knew disco was the key to boosting a jackalope’s mood?

They drove into the night, not stopping until they reached Cedar City, Utah, and found the first halfway decent motel in town. Shane had made some innuendos about having some alone time in the shower tonight, but now that they were finally out of the car, Ryan was pretty sure they were both too wiped for it.

“Hey, I know I said we could get dirty and clean together earlier but I am so tired,” Shane said as he collapsed onto the motel bed, his legs hanging over the end of it.

Ryan stood up from where he was setting up Jack’s water and food bowls. “Me too. And we get to do it all again tomorrow.”

“Hooray,” Shane deadpanned, his voice muffled by the pillow he was currently smushing his face into.

After getting Jack’s litter box set up in the bathroom, Ryan came back out into the motel room to find both Jack and Shane already snoozing. Shane hadn’t even bothered to get under the covers, let alone undress, and Jack was curled up right next to his head.

Ryan took a couple (okay ten) pictures before he grabbed Shane’s shoulder and shook it firmly.

“Hey. Your shoes are still on, you animal.”

“Jack’s the animal,” he mumbled.

“You both are. Come on, it’ll take like 30 seconds.”

Shane groaned with all the air of a fussy toddler as he kicked off all his bottom apparel, save for his underwear.

“You want your sweats?”

“I want to go to sleep,” Shane said as he fumbled with the sheets.

“ _Me too_ ,” Jack agreed from the pillow.

"Okay, okay. Just asking,” Ryan said, slipping under the covers.

Shane flipped over to face him. “Sorry. I’m just all stiff and cranky from that Hot Wheels toy we’ve been in all day.”

“S’okay. I get it.”

Shane leaned in to give Ryan a goodnight kiss before starfishing out on his stomach, his one arm across Ryan’s chest and his leg on Ryan’s. It was not the most comfortable position for Ryan but he didn’t try to move him, either.

“ _Song?”_ Jack asked as he padded across the pillow to lay in between them.

“Oh buddy, I cannot listen to ‘Mamma Mia’ again,” Ryan said apologetically, reaching up to pet him. “Two hours a day is my limit.”

“ _No. The goodnight song.”_

Shane cracked his eyes open, smiling up at Jack. “You like that one?”

“ _Yes_.”

“You wanna sing it with me, Ry?” Shane asked, fingers flexing in Ryan’s t-shirt.

Ryan’s cheeks warmed at “Ry”. That was a new one. “Of course.”

On a silent count of three, they sang Shane’s “Goodnight Baby Jackalope” song to Jack, adjusting the lyrics for the singular jackalope. Jack licked Ryan’s hair as they finished, which was an unusual sensation. He didn’t hate it, though.

For the third night in a row, Ryan fell asleep more easily than usual. He could get used to this.

* * *

Despite crashing almost as soon as they checked in to the motel, Ryan’s phone alarm still went off way too early, ringing obnoxiously loud. He reached over the still-asleep Shane to turn it off from where it was plugged in on the nightstand and felt something hard poke him in the hip. It wasn’t Jack, Ryan could hear him munching on rabbit food, so Ryan flipped back the covers to see what it was.

It did not take long to figure out.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Ryan swore under his breath at Shane’s gigantic fucking morning wood. Or maybe, in Shane’s case, it should be morning redwood. It was that impressive.

“Thought we weren’t swearing in front of him,” Shane said sleepily, his eyes still closed.

“How do you buy pants?!” Ryan asked, unable to take his eyes off of the tent that could house a small family.

“What in God’s name are you- _oh,”_ Shane started to ask before fully waking up. His neck instantly turned a beautiful shade of pink as he realized what Ryan was staring at. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to, you know how it is.”

“If you think I’m upset you’re an idiot,” Ryan said as he clenched the comforter to keep from touching Shane or himself.

“I see. Well, then. Do you want to do that dirty-clean thing in the shower?” Shane asked as he laid a hand on Ryan’s forearm, right near his elbow.

“Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

Suddenly feeling very awake, Ryan and Shane rushed to the bathroom. After quickly brushing their teeth, Shane pressed Ryan up against the counter to give him a minty fresh kiss. His dick was still hard, poking against Ryan’s stomach. Ryan hooked his thumbs in Shane’s boxers to pull them down but a scratch at the bathroom door stopped him.

“ _Ryan? Shane? I have to go,_ ” Jack announced.

"Of course he does,” Shane said with a sigh.

“It’ll just take a sec to put his box out there,” Ryan assured him. Reluctantly extracting himself from Shane’s hold, he grabbed Jack’s litter box and opened the door to set it outside for him.

“There you go. We have to take showers but we’ll be done soon.”

Shane cleared his throat. “Maybe not _that_ soon.”

Ryan deserved a medal for keeping it together in front of Jack. “You need anything else?”

“ _No.”_

“Just let us know if you do, okay?” Ryan said, giving him a quick pat on the head before getting back to Shane.

As soon as Ryan shut the door, Shane was on him again, shoving his hands up Ryan’s t-shirt to hold his waist. Ryan grabbed Shane’s face, pulling him down for a kiss but Shane kept going until he was mouthing at Ryan’s neck.

“Shit,” Ryan hissed as he tangled one hand in Shane’s hair. Clearly encouraged, Shane sucked at Ryan’s throat, using just enough teeth to force a deep-seated groan out of Ryan. Using his free hand, Ryan reached down to his pajama pants but one of Shane’s hands stopped him by grabbing his wrist.

“Let me.”

“Fuuuuuck,” Ryan groaned again as his head hit the back of the bathroom door. “Yeah, please.”

Just as Shane shoved Ryan’s pants and underwear down, there was a scratch at the door.

“ _Ryan? What was that noise?”_

Ryan and Shane froze, with Shane’s hand millimeters from Ryan’s hard dick. Neither spoke, like they were both hoping Jack would get the hint. But he was a baby jackalope, so he didn’t.

“ _Ryan? Shane? Are you hurt?”_

“No,” Ryan said loud enough for Jack to hear. Hopefully the little guy wouldn’t ask why Ryan’s voice cracked. “I’m fine, buddy. Go back to your breakfast.”

“ _But I heard something hit the door._ ”

“Just threw a towel at the door,” Ryan covered.

“ _Why?_ ”

“Oh my God,” Shane whispered. “He’s like an actual kid.”

“I know,” Ryan whispered back before raising his voice again. “Didn’t mean to. Sorry if it scared you.”

“ _Okay_.”

They gave it a few seconds before moving again, with Shane wrapping his hand around Ryan’s dick. Ryan tried to stifle himself but he was naturally noisy and Shane’s hand was so big and soft and it felt so damn good. A moan slipped out from his lips before he could stop himself.

“ _Ryan! Are you sure you are not hurt?”_

“Yup! I’m okay!” Ryan lied as he tried to hold himself still. It was not easy, with Shane’s hand still holding him.

“ _It sounds like you are hurt.”_

“I’m not, I promise. Just doing...push-ups.”

“ _In the shower_?”

“...No?” Ryan said uneasily. Goddamn, that jackalope was way too perceptive.

Shane dropped his forehead on Ryan’s shoulder with a sigh. “This isn’t happening.”

“Maybe if I turn the TV on for him he’ll ignore us,” Ryan suggested, squeezing the back of Shane’s neck.

“With those bionic ears and your mouth? I doubt it.”

“I’m sorry. I tried to be quiet,” Ryan said sheepishly.

Shane dropped his hold on Ryan’s dick and stood up straight. “It’s okay. I should’ve known you were a noisy fuck.”

Ryan poked Shane in the chest. “Hey!”

Shane poked him back. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it. Just inconvenient right now, is all. 

“What about tonight? We can go to your place, Jack will have everything but the bedroom to keep him occupied,” Ryan proposed.

“Yeah, but…Obi,” Shane said, biting his lip. “He’s a lover, not a fighter, but I doubt we can leave them alone together.”

“What about your whole ‘they’ll be best bros’ thing?”

“They will! But I’m not naive enough to think it will happen immediately.”

“Okay, then we’ll go to my place.”

“And where will Jack go? Chill with the rowdy boys?” Shane suggested sarcastically. “Have you even told them you’re bringing a pet ‘rabbit’ home?”

Ryan had not. “So not my place. Shit.”

“I guess we’ll try mine. Hopefully our sons won’t try to kill each other,” Shane said with a hopeful smile.

“And I won’t have an allergy attack,” Ryan added.

Shane’s face fell. “I forgot about that. _Shit._ ”

“Should be okay, as long as Obi doesn’t sleep on your bed.”

“Uh…”

Ryan’s head hit the back of the door again. “Of course he does.”

“I’ll change the sheets. And vacuum. And dust,” Shane said quickly. “It’ll be like a cat has never crossed the threshold to my bedroom.”

Ryan smiled fondly up at him. “Sounds like a plan. A sexy plan.”

“Yup, and we’re going to be all tired and gross from the car, too. It’s gonna be _so_ sexy,” Shane deadpanned.

“You’ll be there. That’s sexy enough for me,” Ryan said, giving Shane’s hips a squeeze.

His neck turned that gorgeous shade of pink again. “Really now?”

“Really.”

Ryan tipped his head up to kiss Shane again. Shane groaned this time as he reluctantly pulled away.

“Okay, no more of that or else my dick’s gonna explode.”

Ryan snorted. “Is that spontaneous human combustion but just in the dick area?”

“You know, I bet that’s what really happened in all those cases. All those people got hot and  bothered by their sexy friends and couldn’t hook up because of baby jackalopes and then they just went BOOM!” Shane explained, miming an explosion with his hands.

“For the first time, this mystery is...solved,” Ryan said in his best theory voice before dissolving into giggles.

Shane cracked up. “We finally did it, baby! We got one!”

They continued to joke about dicksplosions until Jack interrupted them again (he knocked over his water bowl). They didn’t get anymore alone time all morning, but it was just as well since they couldn’t hook up anyway.

Back out on the road, they all fell into an already-familiar routine. As he was admittedly the worst backseat driver, Ryan did most of the driving while Shane controlled the music and GPS. Jack would play in the backseat, sing with Shane, and constantly try to get into the bag where a bottle of whiskey was stashed (“No open containers, Jack!” Shane would admonish him, but it never stuck).

Both Shane and Jack fell asleep for awhile in the early afternoon. Shane’s legs were stretched out as far as he could get them, his head propped up by a neck pillow, while Jack was curled up on top of the neck pillow, his nose pressed against Shane’s hair. Ryan had to pull off onto the shoulder to take a picture, it made him too happy.

Even with all the cockblocking, Ryan wouldn’t have changed anything about this whole situation. Jack alone was enough of a reason, but it was also so reassuring to know that this whole thing with Shane wasn’t just physical. If they were going to do this, and by all accounts they were, it had to work. Not just for the show, but for themselves. Their relationship meant so much to Ryan already, he couldn’t bear the thought of fucking it up. So, for everything to be more or less the same between them was a huge relief. They still fought about ghosts (“Jack doesn’t prove jack-you-know-what!” Shane had argued while Ryan raged from the driver’s seat), they still traded popcorn secrets and strategies, and they both still loved finding that perfect combination of words that made the other wheeze. The only differences were that sometimes, Shane’s hand would find its way to the back of Ryan’s neck while the latter was driving and the brief kisses they shared at rest stops. It was so natural and easy that Ryan couldn’t believe they hadn’t been doing it for months already.

As Ryan merged back onto the highway after snapping his photos, he smiled to himself. He had a good feeling about tonight, and not just because of the preview from this morning. This was going to work, _they_ were going to work, and their sexy plan was going to work. He just knew it.

* * *

“Obi! Get off the counter and _come here._ ”

“Jaaaaack. Come out, buddy. He won’t hurt you.”

“Good boy, now just a little closer… _fuck_. He’s back in the living room!”

“Ah shit. No, Obi, go back to your dad in the kitchen. He has treats.”

Shane shook said bag of treats. “Yeah, you want some chicken crunchies? Yeah, you do. Come on, good kitty.”

“He’s going back to the kitchen, Jack. You can come out, I promise,” Ryan said, reaching down behind Shane’s sofa. His fingertips brushed against Jack’s regular antler but it was as close as he could get.

“ _No.”_

“I’ll hold onto you or put you back in my pocket if you want. No one’s gonna hurt you,” Ryan said, trying to reassure him.

“ _No. Safe back here._ ”

Ryan sighed, his forehead hitting the back of the couch. They really should have planned this better.

In the car, Shane told Jack all about Obi and how he was a very good boy who liked to play in boxes and sleep on his cat tree. Jack had never been around a cat so he seemed to be okay with meeting him, at least, until they actually met. True to Shane’s word, Obi was not a fighter, but he was also not the most calm and collected cat, either, and he flipped out the moment Ryan pulled Jack out of his pocket. Obi’s eyes went black and every hair on his body stood on end as soon as he sniffed Jack. Then Jack’s animal instincts kicked in and he squirmed out of Ryan’s hands to make a run for it. From there, it had been twenty minutes of chaos. Orange and brown blurs darting all over Shane’s apartment, Ryan sneezing every time he knelt down on the floor to try and grab Jack, and Shane desperately shaking a cat treat bag to no avail.

It was not the sexy night Ryan had envisioned, to say the least.

“Ryan, don’t move,” Shane said suddenly, his voice quiet.

“Huh?”

“I think I’ve got his attention. Just don’t make any sudden movements or noises.”

Ryan looked up to see Shane backing out of the kitchen with the bag of treats and a jingly plastic ball in his hands and Obi following him.

“Yeah, Obi, you want a treat and your toy? Come on,” Shane cooed encouragingly. “Good boy, that’s it.”

Shane started dropping treats on the ground as a breadcrumb trail to his office. To their relief, Obi eagerly followed, snacking as he went. Once he was close enough, Shane tossed the toy into the office and Obi darted in after it and Shane quickly closed the door behind him.

Shane wiped his brow exaggeratedly. “FINALLY. Okay, that’s one terrified animal sequestered. Where’s our other boy?”

“Behind your couch. I can’t quite reach him.”

“My time has come,” Shane said as he stretched his arms out, his knuckles cracking in the process. He joined Ryan on the couch and rolled his sleeves up.

“Jack? Obi is gone. He’s in a different room now. You can come out,” Ryan said, peering down the space between the wall and couch. Meanwhile, Shane slowly started to lower his arm down the same space, behind Jack.

“ _But I smell him._ ”

“Well, yeah, dude. He lives here, it’s gonna smell like him. But I promise you he’s not out here.”

Jack just huddled into a tighter ball but it didn’t matter because Shane’s gigantic hand firmly wrapped around him one second later. Jack yelled in protest but Shane didn’t let go as he brought him back up.

“ _NO. The cat will eat me!”_ Jack cried as he kicked his feet, attempting to get out of Shane’s grasp. Shane winced but he held on, bringing him into his lap.

Ryan stroked his index finger in between Jack’s antlers, trying to calm him. “He won’t. I promised your mom I’d take care of you, okay? That means I won’t let you get eaten.”

“His heart’s beating like a trillion miles a minute,” Shane said quietly, gently scratching behind Jack’s ears.

“ _I have to go, have to hide,_ ” Jack whimpered.

“I know, I get like that too, sometimes. It’s really scary to be, well, scared,” Ryan told him.

Jack lifted his head up. “ _You get scared?_ ”

Ryan and Shane shared a knowing grin before Ryan spoke again. “Oh yeah. I get scared all the time.”

“And often for no reason,” Shane cut-in.

“Ghosts are a reason,” Ryan shot back before continuing. “Anyway, like I was saying, I get scared all the time, Jack. But I can’t go run and hide every time I do, you know? Because then I’d never stop hiding. So, I face my fears. I run at ‘em, even if I’m screaming my head off the entire time.”

“ _Does it ever get less scary?”_

“Honestly? Not really. But I still do it.”

“ _Why_?”

Ryan glanced up at Shane. “I guess I just don’t like playing it safe.”

Shane smiled, all soft and warm and crinkly-eyed. Of the many expressions Shane could pull off with his features, it was easily Ryan’s favorite.

“ _I will try,_ ” Jack said. “ _If I have whiskey first.”_

"We can do that. A bit of liquid courage never hurt,” Ryan told him with a grin.

While Ryan got Jack some whiskey, Shane went to have his own pep talk with Obi. Of course, with a cat, it was less talking and more chin scratches and catnip, but Ryan hoped the results would be similar.

When Shane said Obi was as ready as he was going to be, Ryan brought Jack back to the office and handed him off to Shane.

“You don’t want to hold him?”

“I would but I don’t want to take the chance that I’ll sneeze and ruin it,” Ryan explained. “I’ll be the moral support by the door.”

Shane took Jack and sat down on the floor. Obi looked up from his catnip pile with wide eyes but when Jack didn’t run, neither did he.

“Good kitty, come here, orange boy,” Shane said in his higher-pitched, pet-talking voice. “Come say hi.”

Obi took a couple cautious steps, his nose flaring at Jack’s smell. Ryan could see Jack trembling but he still didn’t try to run.

“You can do this, Jack,” Ryan said encouragingly. “Don’t let the fear in.”

When Obi got close, Shane’s fingers flexed around Jack, holding him tighter. Ryan braced himself, ready to snatch Jack up if this was going to go south.

Obi sniffed Jack’s antler for five agonizing seconds. Ryan held his breath. This was it, the make or break moment.

Then Obi rubbed his chin on the pointiest part of Jack’s antler. Jack stayed still, watching the cat with big brown eyes.

“Holy shit,” Ryan said quietly. “Good boys.”

“The best boys,” Shane agreed.

When Obi was done rubbing on Jack’s antler, he retreated back to his catnip pile. Not wanting to push their luck, Ryan and Shane left him there and took Jack back out to the living room.

“You did so good, Jack!” Ryan told him as Jack drank from his small bowl of whiskey.

“ _I was still scared_.”

“That’s okay! That’s what being brave is, little dude. And you are easily the bravest jackalope I know,” Ryan said.

“ _Thank you._ ”

“You’re so good at that,” Shane said from the hallway, a pile of clean sheets in his hands.

“So good at what?”

“Being a dad.”

Ryan blushed. “I’m not…that’s not what this is.”

“Then what is it?”

“I…,” Ryan didn’t have an answer. Shane just smiled as he left to clean his bedroom.

As much as Ryan wanted kids, he knew he wasn’t ready for them. He was too busy, didn’t have enough money, and it just wasn’t time, yet. But a kid that slept most of the day, only ate veggies, drank whiskey, and loved weird ABBA cover songs? Yeah, he could be a dad to that kind of kid.

About twenty minutes later, Shane emerged from his room, sweat lining his forehead.

“Okay, sheets are changed, carpet is vacuumed, and all cat-related things are out. I think the ol’ place is officially Ryan Bergara ready.”

Ryan paused the movie he’d put on for Jack (Zootopia. Any kid of his _was_ going to be a Disney fan, no questions asked). “Yeah? I think I might just crash. Been a long day, you know?”

Shane’s face fell for a split-second before he masked it with a smile. “Oh, yeah, sure. No problem.”

“Yeah, it’s just been _so_ long and hard and frustrating. Think I just want to lie down and not be disturbed,” Ryan said, biting down his grin.

“I totally get it. Road trips are a killer,” Shane said as he scrunched up his hair.

“Great. You don’t mind sleeping out there, then?”

Shane dropped his hands, his eyes narrowing at Ryan. “Oh I am going to _destroy_ you.”

Ryan finally cracked, wheezing as he threw his head back against the couch. “I had you there, didn’t I?”

“You did, you son of a,” he paused, eyeing Jack. “Biscuit-eater.”

“What?!”

“Trying not to swear on demand is hard. Now, get over here,” Shane said with a stomp of his foot before adding in a softer tone. “Please?”

Ryan restarted the movie and went over to where Shane was standing. Shane cupped Ryan’s cheek, running his thumb over it.

“Jack, you need anything?” Ryan asked, praying the answer was no.

“ _No._ ”

Thank God.

“Have fun with your movie,” Shane said as he grabbed Ryan’s hand. “We’ll see you in a bit.”

“A long bit,” Ryan clarified as Shane dragged him towards his room.

Shane pulled Ryan inside and shut the door behind them. Here they were, finally, with no cockblocking jackalopes or any other distractions. It was just them, alone, with all the time in the world.

Ryan’s stomach suddenly twisted itself up like a pretzel. What if they weren’t good at this part? It seemed unlikely, but the thought nagged at him. Would they have to go back to how things were before if the sex was bad? Ryan wasn’t sure if he could.

“Nervous?” Shane asked as he brushed some hair out of Ryan’s face.

“Yeah. It’s dumb, sorry.”

“Don’t be. I am too,” Shane admitted. “Everything else works so well, I’m afraid this will be the one thing we don’t click on.”

“Same! Like, I know it’ll almost definitely be great, but now that we’re here, part of me is like ‘but what if it isn’t?’”

Shane grabbed Ryan’s hips and pulled him in close. “I guess we’ll just have to face our fears, then.”

“Guess so,” Ryan said, laying his hands on Shane’s chest.

Shane leaned in first, tilting his head down to catch Ryan’s lips with his own. Ryan curled his fingers in Shane’s shirt as he pushed him towards the bed. When his knees hit the edge, Shane fell back onto his elbows and grinned up at Ryan.

“Doing pretty good so far, I think.”

“Yeah, yeah. Take your shirt off, big guy, let’s really see how good we are,” Ryan said before chucking his own shirt into a corner.

One of Shane’s elbows buckled under him and he flopped down completely onto the bed. “Uh. Yeah. Shirtless, I can do that.”

Shane shrugged off his henley, the sleeve briefly getting stuck on his watch. He gave Ryan a little “whoops!” face but Ryan was too distracted by Shane’s chest to respond. Even though he was mostly leg, Shane’s torso was still so long and there was so much to take in. The trail of light brown hair leading to his pants, the divots of his hips, the way he chest rose and fell as he breathed. But most mesmerizing was Shane’s skin, the way it was dotted with faint freckles like the negative image of a Los Angeles night sky.

“Shit, that didn't last long. Well, guess we tried,” Shane said with an uneasy laugh, reaching for his shirt.

Ryan quickly stopped him by grabbing his wrist. “What the everloving fuck are you talking about?”

Shane's wrist flexed in Ryan's hold. “You were just staring, I thought maybe you realized you weren't into…it.”

“I was staring because I couldn't decide where I wanted to put my mouth first, you dumbass.”

Pink blossomed across Shane's neck and his collarbones. “Oh. Can I, uh, can I help you out?”

“Nah, I think I’ve got it.”

Ryan climbed on top of Shane, straddling his hips, and pressed his mouth to the hollow of Shane's throat, right where it was the most flushed.

“Good choice,” Shane gasped as he splayed his hands across Ryan's back.

After sucking a small mark into his skin, Ryan worked his down and across Shane’s chest, leaving sharp kisses along the way. Every time he did it, Shane let out a breathy moan, the rare vocal tic that was new to Ryan’s ears. He wanted to hear it approximately twelve million more times.

Ryan didn’t stop when he got to Shane’s pants, mouthing at the fabric where Shane’s dick was straining against it. Shane carded his fingers into Ryan’s hair as he pushed up against his mouth.

“Fuck. Quit trying to get my dick to explode and get on with it.”

Ryan snorted, pressing his forehead against Shane’s hip. “You really know how to capture the mood, huh?”

“If you expected anything else, that’s on you,” Shane told him, lightly tugging on his hair. “Now, seriously, my balls are going to turn cerulean if you don’t take my pants off right this second.”

“Jesus, you’re whiny,” Ryan said as he made quick work of Shane’s fly.

“Yeah, well, you’re slow.”

Ryan knew Shane was just goading him into getting right down to business and he seriously considered taking his sweet time undressing Shane just to annoy him. But as soon as he unzipped Shane’s chinos and saw the way his dick was pressing up against his underwear, Ryan’s own impatience got in the way.

He pulled down Shane’s pants and boxers to free his cock. Even after his preview at the motel, the length still surprised him.

“Seriously, between your legs and this, how do you find pants?” Ryan asked him before licking his palm.

“Not very easily. It’s why I have the same pair in every col-ah!” Shane gasped as Ryan wrapped his hand around him.

“So _that’s_ how I can shut you up. Good to know,” Ryan observed as he slid his hand up to the head of Shane’s cock.

“Whatever gets you to touch my dick, I’ll take it.”

At that, Ryan let go. As soon as Shane started to gripe, he took Shane’s cock into his mouth, licking at the head.

“FUCK!” Shane groaned, reflexively pulling on Ryan’s hair. “Sorry.”

Ryan flashed him the “OK” symbol with his hand as he took more of Shane in. He could already taste precome and it made Ryan’s own cock strain against his underwear. He really should have gotten undressed all the way before doing this.

While Ryan sucked his cock, Shane made a few of those wonderful breathy moans again, but they weren’t enough for Ryan’s liking. He pulled off to mouth at Shane’s balls, hoping to get more of those noises out of him.

“Jesus Christ, Ryan!” Shane shouted.

Ryan poked his head up. Fuck, he was pink all over now. “What?”

“You’re really, really good at that.”

Not expecting the compliment, Ryan flushed as he ducked his head back down. “I try.”

“Do or do not, there is no try,” Shane said in a terrible fucking Yoda impression.

“Please do not quote wrinkly old puppets at me while I’m sucking your dick.”

“Don’t set me up so easily for it, then.”

“Whatever.”

Ryan licked down and around the base of Shane’s cock while his hand worked the head. When he went a minute or two without hearing any noises out of Shane, he’d switch, jerking him off at the base while sucking at the tip. He only had to do that a few times before Shane’s breath started to hitch and his hips began to buck.

“Close,” he murmured as his palm flattened out on Ryan’s head.

Ryan moved his head back up to take Shane back in. He flashed him the “OK” symbol again as he tried to bring Shane over the edge.

Shane started babbling, a string of “fuck”’s and “Ryan”’s, until he came. After swallowing, Ryan pulled off to kiss and suck at Shane’s thighs, chasing the taste of his skin.

“Ry, please,” Shane said in between deep breaths. “C’mere.”

He looked _wrecked_ , his face and neck bright red, sweat dripping down his forehead, and his hair going in even more directions than usual.

Ryan didn’t have to be told twice.

He climbed up Shane’s body until they could kiss. Shane wrapped his arms around Ryan’s back, holding him as close as their bodies would allow.

“Gimme a second, then we’ll switch,” Shane told Ryan as he rubbed his nose against Ryan’s cheek.

“We can stay like this.”

“Do tell how I’m going to suck your dick from this angle.”

“You’re not. Tonight, I just want your hands.”

Shane pushed Ryan a few inches away, just far enough so he could look at Ryan like he was a nutcase.

“Ryan, I _want_ to suck your dick. A lot. So don’t act like it’s a hardship or something.”

Ryan grabbed one of Shane’s hands and held it in between his own. “That’s not it. I just really want your hands and only your hands.”

“No one has _ever_ wanted a handjob instead of a blowjob,” Shane pointed out, flexing his fingers against Ryan’s.

“Yeah, well, they didn’t have these hands in front of them, did they?”

To further make his point, Ryan pressed a kiss to Shane’s palm. Shane twitched, whether from an aftershock or the realization that Ryan was serious, Ryan wasn’t sure.

“Okay, okay, I get it. I have nice hands. I still think you’re a fucking weirdo, though.”

“I can live with that.”

They broke apart so Ryan could take his pants off while Shane grabbed some lube from his nightstand. When they were ready, Ryan laid on his back while Shane laid next to him, on his side. He squirted some lube onto his right hand and didn’t waste any time wrapping it around Ryan’s dick. Ryan groaned just from the sight of Shane’s gigantic hand on him.

“Is that enough?” Shane asked, spreading the lube up and down the length of Ryan’s dick.

“Yeah,” he gasped. “Fuck, you feel so good.”

Shane tightened his grip and Ryan’s hips automatically snapped forward. There was no way this was going to last long, not with how soft and warm and slick Shane’s grip was. He couldn’t stop groaning, a mixture of swears and nonsense words, as he fucked up into Shane’s hand.

“God, _Ryan_ ,” Shane muttered, his voice raw.

“What now?” Ryan asked in between moans.

“You’re just so fucking gorgeous like this. If I hadn’t just had a top five orgasm, I’d be hard again just from watching you.”

Ryan huffed out a laugh. “Top five, huh?”

“Don’t worry, I have a good feeling you’ll break into the top four soon enough. I mean, if you look like _this_ while I’m giving you a handjob, I can only imagine what it’ll be like when you fuck me.”

Ryan pictured it: Shane wrapped around his dick, his long legs hooked up around Ryan’s waist, sweat falling off the tips of his hair, his skin flushed and warm as he groaned Ryan’s name with every thrust.

With no warning, Ryan came all over Shane’s hand.

“Oh!” Shane marveled, stroking Ryan through it. “I gotta say, I expected that to be noisier.”

“I usually am,” Ryan said as he wiped sweat off his face. “I was too distracted thinking about what you said.”

“About you fucking me?”

“Yeah.”

Shane shuddered as he splayed his filthy hand across Ryan’s stomach. “You’re really determined to make my dick explode, aren’t you?”

Laughing, Ryan winded his fingers into Shane’s hair. “I thought we figured out that only happened from getting cockblocked.”

“Cockblocked and extremely turned on are two sides of the same dicksplosion coin,” Shane said as he angled his head down, the tip of his nose rubbing against Ryan’s.

“Mmm, such good pillow talk. I’m all warm and fuzzy,” Ryan teased.

“I’ll show you warm and fuzzy,” Shane warned before pressing their lips together. Ryan hummed into the kiss, keeping it soft and slow. To Shane’s credit, Ryan did feel pleasantly warm and fuzzy, now.

“I can’t believe we thought we’d be bad at this part,” Shane finally said when they had to come up for air.

“We're idiots,” Ryan agreed.

“As long as we can admit it.”

After they got cleaned up and changed into pajamas, they went to check on their respective boys. Jack was fast asleep on the couch as the end credits to Zootopia played on the TV screen. Ryan softly stroked his back to wake him up.

“Hey buddy. You ready to go to bed?”

“ _I was asleep_ ,” he grumbled.

“I know. But wouldn’t you rather sleep with us than out here alone?”

Jack perked up. “ _Yes._ ”

As Ryan carried Jack to the bedroom, they passed Obi trotting by them. A single tremble ran through Jack but that was it. Pride surged through Ryan as he held him closer to his chest. He really was the bravest little jackalope.

Shane followed them into his bedroom with Jack’s litter box and water bowl and shut the door behind him. After setting up some makeshift steps with dirty clothes to help Jack get off and on the bed, Ryan and Shane snuggled up in bed together with him.

Ryan was about to ask if Jack wanted them to sing to him when Jack beat him to the punch.

“ _Goodnight Ryan and Shane, here I go again. My, my, how can I thank you?”_ he sang to the tune of “Mamma Mia”. Shane clutched Ryan’s forearm as they stared up at Jack in awe.

“You don’t have to thank us,” Ryan said, his voice catching.

Jack scratched his antler against Ryan’s head. “ _Yes, I do._ ”

“Just keep singing,” Shane said softly. “That’s more than enough.”

Jack did, continuing his favorite song, while Ryan and Shane shifted closer to each other, until their foreheads were touching. In his entire life, Ryan had never felt as close to anyone as he did to Shane right now. It was overwhelming to be as tangled up with someone else as much as he was with Shane; they worked together, hung out together, rescued a baby jackalope together, and now they _were_ together. One slip and all of that could come crashing down. It was going to be hard as hell, navigating all the inevitable twists and turns. In fact, it was probably going to be downright terrifying.

Ryan couldn’t wait.


End file.
